House: Ravenclaw

Position: Transfiguration

Category: Standard

Prompt: [Event] Celebrating somebody's death

Word Count: 2196

AN: AU.

Working under the assumption that Fabian and Gideon Prewett were twins; unclear according to HP Wiki/ Pottermore and other sources.

Seeing this as starting the Halloween immediately following DH and the second Wizarding War. May go beyond the known epilogue without really touching on anything that might come out of The Cursed Child.

On Hallowed Ground

Harry worked on getting the snow swept off the stone. It was an early start to the season. Soft and grainy, snow in October didn't have the staying power of a long, cold winter to help it take shape. It was fluffy and far too easily dismissed to be anything more than a nuisance. Just a quick dusting with the sleeve of his jacket and all was revealed, if not perfect. Truly, he was grateful for the task; it relieved him of having to figure out what his intentions were. But now that it was done, he faced the same confusion he always felt this time of year. Empty and yearning, he kneeled down and stared at the marble headpieces, but they had nothing to say.

What were you thinking, you dolt? How is this helping anything?

The warmth of another's closeness in the chill shocked him out of his reverie.

"Slipped off, did you?" She sidled up closer, kneeling beside him. She reached out and traced the lettering in the stone. "Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

"I guess I thought you wouldn't figure it out quite so quickly."

Ginny smiled. "You underestimate me, which is always a mistake." She stood up and reached out for him. Harry grasped at her hand and stood.

"You didn't even dress up, Harry," Ginny chided, her smile gone. He knew he couldn't hide his growing gloom from her; not for long.

"I couldn't figure out what to be," he answered half-heartedly. "After all this, I just wanted to be me for once," he added, a mumble under his breath.

She swept his hair off of his forehead and brushed her lips along the skin of his scar. "I know," she whispered. She wrapped him up in her arms and her warmth (and an awful Afghan of her mother's?) and they stood there like that for what seemed a lifetime. "It's okay to grieve," she said, finally, into the deepening quiet, "but you also have to get on with it, Harry. It's what they would've wanted." She paused, and Harry thought he felt her chest heave with a sigh. "It's what they gave their lives for."

He felt shot through like he'd been hexed. He doubled-over, his hand at his chest as he reached out for the sturdiness of the stone.

Ginny clutched at him. "Harry? Harry, are you all right?"

He pressed his forehead to the cold stone, his eyes closed, his glasses sliding down his face in a wash of tears.

She was right. So why couldn't he bring himself to do it? He turned to look at her, she was flush with concern.

"Harry," she murmured. "Harry, please, I didn't mean—"

"You're right, though." He closed his eyes again and shook his head. "They gave everything so I could live, and I come here —" His voice caught in his throat. He swallowed hard and finished his thought. "And I come here to wish I were dead."

Ginny plopped to the ground and stared out into the night, her eyes unfocused and she, oddly, quiet. He couldn't recall the last time they had passed so much time in silence. It was certainly unusual with any Weasley, Ginny most of all. Still, he had startled her, of that he had no doubt. And so, there they stayed until the bell in the church tower rang out its solemn clang of passing time.

"You've mistaken this," she said, so quietly that he needed to watch her lips to be sure he wasn't hearing a ghost. "This isn't about the dead."

Harry looked around. It was a cemetery, wasn't it? It certainly seemed to be about the dead.

"Mum always said that cemeteries are for strangers, not family." She looked at him from beneath a curtain of long, red hair. She twisted a lock of it around her index finger as she fumbled for words. "We don't go to visit the graves of my uncles, hardly ever."

"Why not?"

"Mum doesn't like to," she went on. "She'd rather spend that time with us, or so she says. She bakes this awful Butterbeer funnel cake that she claims was their favourite..." Ginny shrugged. "Fabian and Gideon were gone long before I came around. It didn't really occur to me. But now...with Fred…"

It made Harry's heart hurt just to hear his name.

Ginny sniffled and wiped at her nose. "I don't know, Harry. I think I'd rather sing songs that Fred liked while eating an absurd amount of Sticky Toffee Pudding with chocolate ice cream, and hanging out with George while he tells wild tales of how he and Fred got up to some nonsense or the other. It no longer matters if the story is real. It's just us being together and laughing and remembering." She looked down at the burial markers and brushed away the new snow that had collected there since she'd arrived. "This is for others," she went on. "It's for passersby who don't know what happened here. Who aren't connected to it." She reached out and took his hand. "You," she said, forcefully. "You are what they left behind because living is what is important." She shook her head, her hair falling in a flaming cascade. "If you don't see that, then I don't know what we all fought for."

"But how? How do I know anything? I hardly even know them? How do I sing my mother's favourite songs? How do I toast my father with his favourite drink?"

Ginny thought about it a moment or two. "Maybe you know more than you think."

The journal was plain enough, basic. Ginny was certain to take care of the obvious.

You have your mother's eyes, it said at the top of the first page. Beyond that, it was as blank as blank could be; and stayed that way for quite a while. Until it didn't.

Harry wasn't quite sure when it started, but there were little things he started to collect. He found an old cardigan that belonged to his father. When he tried it on, he found it to be a bit big; too long in the sleeves and the pockets hanging a bit low on his hip. He hadn't realized he would have been shorter, slighter than James. At least for now.

Sometime later, as he was going through some of Sirius' things, he found letters his mother had written. He'd never seen her handwriting before. It was long and thin, elegant but also spidery in a way he hadn't imagined. It reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite place it.

One of Lily's notes ended up between the pages of his journal. She was complaining to Sirius about how terrible teething was going for Harry, and subsequently, for her. He found himself thinking about what sort of solace she was likely to get from Padfoot in his consummate bachelorhood. He wondered if he cried often or if he was just fussy. He was astonished to read that his mother thought he looked like her sister, Petunia, at that age. Harry was certain, in his heart, that Sirius would not have agreed.

The writing came more naturally than he expected.

"Do you want to do a couples thing?" Ginny asked as she rummaged through the impossibly deep closet in her childhood bedroom after a Sunday roast at the Burrow.

"Hmmmm?" Harry had his head buried in his journal. Again.

"For Halloween?" she said, plopping herself down to look at him. She threw a pink feather boa at him, but it fell short, falling just in front of his feet. "You know. People get dressed up and go to parties and such?"

Harry kept scribbling for a moment or two more before he grabbed up the boa with the toe of his trainer, and flipped it up to wrap around his own neck. "You mean, like so?" he teased.

Ginny scrambled up beside him, leaning in to kiss his cheek. "Maybe," she smirked. "What do you think?" She squirmed a bit closer. "It could be my last party for a while…"

He knew what she meant. She'd auditioned for the Holyhead Harpies just last month. Now she was heading to a team scrimmage next week as a final tryout for the team. If she made it (and no one knew better than Harry how likely that was) she would be on the road a lot in the coming year. Or years. This year had changed so much; the next year could change even more.

"Sure," he agreed, halfheartedly.

"Buuut…"

"Well I've been thinking. There's something else I'd like to do this year, too. Something that you got me started on..." He grabbed his journal and opened to page one

Godric's Hollow was always exquisite in the autumn, and this time was no different. Even after all these years, the beauty of this small, typically quaint English village could put a smile on his face no matter what mood he arrived in. He looked forward to the ritual of the visit — to the time he could dedicate to himself and to the family he'd lost all. Ginny hadn't been wrong — grief was only part of the process. Ultimately, it had become a journey of discovery and celebration — it had been about connecting to his loss so he could move forward.

Harry laid out the well-worn tartan, fingering the frayed edges a bit before he reached for the picnic basket. He was glad for the unusual warmth. The sun was setting beyond St. Jerome's small stone facade, setting the leaves ablaze with reds and golds. He grasped the neck of a wine bottle and two charmed wine glasses.

"Oh, so fancy," Ginny proclaimed with sarcasm as she approached with large, plush pillows. She kneeled, placing two together for her to lean back into while she slid the third over in Harry's direction with her foot. He smiled, and handed her a glass.

"A toast," he proposed.

"To?"

"The last little bird leaving the nest," his smile broadened. Truly they were still years away from being 'empty-nesters', but something about putting Lily on the train earlier in the year had a sense of finality to it. They had made it so far, and now could begin to contemplate yet another phase in their lives.

A life I might not have had, had it not been for Ginny.

"Who better to share it with," Ginny agreed, nodding towards the gravestones.

They clinked their glasses and drank, taking in the grace of a beautiful end to the day.

"You know, I was thinking," Harry said.

"Always dangerous," Ginny retorted with her usual mirth. "Do go on."

"Perhaps change is good." He looked a bit wistful as he cleared a few dead leaves away from the stone markers bearing his parents' names. "Maybe it's time to build a new tradition."

"Do you mean you won't be visiting here?"

"Certainly, I'll come," he replied, "I don't know that I'll ever get over wanting to stop in here at least on this day, but—" How to admit that he was also ready to be free? It felt so selfish.

"Well, no need to decide it all today," Ginny said, reassuringly. "You'll figure it out."

He nodded his agreement and sipped his wine. They chatted about travel and vacations, and how soon they could convert one of the boys' rooms into a sewing nook, and what side dish Ginny should bring over to the house on Sunday. They dreamed. They laughed. They kissed under the stars.

They returned home far later than either had anticipated, and Ginny wobbled her way upstairs for a hot shower. As Harry put on the kettle, he flipped on the little light glowing from just beneath the range and leaned back against the counter to wait. The light spilled in a warm yellow glow around the kitchen and through the doorway into their family room. Everywhere the light touched, Harry saw evidence of the love and family that he and Ginny had built there. An old finger painting from James' first year in preschool that was somehow still on their fridge. The ribbons of academic achievement that Albus had acquired while still in a Muggle primary. Even his tea was always in the lumpy, misshapen clay mug that Lily had made one summer weekend while Luna had come to visit. And off in the dark, the light glinted along the silver edges of the picture frame of he and Ginny on their wedding day. Next to it sat the picture he had of his parents, dancing near the fountain amid the fall of autumn leaves…

The whistle blew on the kettle and he poured the tea, his heart light. This wasn't change; it was evolution. With Ginny's support, he'd found a way to honour the family he'd missed out on, while learning to live his own life — to build his own family.

And as he climbed the stairs, two aspirin and a mint tea in hand for his lightweight wife, he felt the peace of knowing he'd done his best by them.