Chapter 7 - Memories

Sirius apparated into the edge of Godric's Hollow, the invisibility cloak still covering his body, and made his way towards the house he was all too familiar with. Though it was not so familiar anymore now that it was not inhabited by his friends. The house still stood in ruins, he wondered if it had been enchanted to ensure that the Muggles could not see it. Sirius felt a stab of longing as he looked at the house.

Sirius remembered the first time he had come to this house. His friends had been so proud to have a place of their own since being married. James had heard his arrival and had run to the door to welcome him with open arms. They had then made their way into the kitchen where Lily was arranging some Pumpkin pasties onto a plate. James summoned three butterbeers and the three of them made their way into the living room where they already had a nice beige sofa with a matching armchair. The rest of the room was filled with labelled cardboard boxes labelled with things like: "Kitchen" "Living Room" "Old School Stuff" "Broomstick maintenance kits".

Once they had sat down and exchanged pleasantries whilst tucking into their pumpkin pasties Lupin arrived. Once they were all settled in the living room, Lily on the armchair and the rest of them sitting close on the two seated sofa, James' face suddenly grew serious and turned to his two friends:

"I wanted the three of you to be here for me to tell you this but I couldn't get ahold of Peter: Lily and I are pregnant." James announced, barely containing his excitement.

Sirius' mouth hung open before he quickly said: "James, I dont think a wizard is supposed to be pregnant, but regardless I am happy that you both somehow managed to get pregnant at the same time."

James smiled broadly and shook his head: "you know what I mean! It was hard enough to keep this from you all for this long but Lily insisted that we wait a month before …"

"A MONTH" Sirius cried out, over dramatically. "A MONTH, PRONGS! How dare you keep this from me!"

"Sirius - shut up." Remus broke in. "Congratulations you two, on the second child in your relationship."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Alright, best friend number two, you can joke all you want but I am going to be the favourite uncle!"

"Well actually." Lily said, fiddling with her half full butterbeer bottle and only making slight eye contact with Sirius. "We were hoping that you would be his Godfather."

"I ACCEPT, I ACCEPT." Sirius said excitedly, suddenly jumping up from his seat and rushing forward to hug Lily who laughed joyfully at his reaction.

"Oh and Remus, we were hoping that you would be Godfather when we have our next child." Lily said, having to raise her voice through Sirius blocking her face with his arms.

Remus smiled kindly. "I would be happy to, Lily."

"'Our next child'?" James suddenly interjected, eyes wide. Lily smiled and Sirius finally pulled away and instead attacked James.

Sirius smiled gloomily as he remembered. Remus had never succeeded in becoming a Godfather as Lily had died whilst she was only 1 month along. It hurt Sirius to think about this so he distracted himself by turning away from the house and making his way to the church where he knew he would find his friends.

It was a Thursday morning, so the churchyard was largely abandoned. He wasn't sure where his friends were buried so he made his way to look around, all the information he had about their whereabouts was that it was a joint grave; He was glad that they could be together, even in death.

It took a while but finally Sirius located the grave. He walked towards it suddenly shy. The gravestone was white marble:

IN LOVING MEMORY

OF

JAMES POTTER O LILY POTTER

BORN: BORN:

27 MARCH 1950 30 JANUARY 1950

O O

DIED: DIED:

31 OCTOBER 1981 31 OCTOBER 1981

THE LAST ENEMY THAT WILL BE DESTROYED IS DEATH

Sirius sighed, he didn't quite understand what the quote underneath meant but he was sure that it was Dumbledore's work. He summoned some Lilies on top of the grave stone and quietly said goodbye.

"I'm sorry that you two won't get too see Harriet grow up but I promise that she will have a loving upbringing and as long as she is with me, she will always be safe. I miss you both a lot, my best friends. Everytime I look at Harriet I am reminded of you. I hope that you believe I am raising her the right way until she leaves for Hogwarts when she is 11. I'm sure that she will be popular there, what with James' good looks. When she is old enough to understand I will bring Harriet here to see her parents but until then it is unlikely that I will have the chance to visit again. So this is goodbye, for now."

Sirius felt a lump in his throat and wiped away a sneaky tear. As he turned around to leave he jumped when he saw Ruby Hagrid standing there. She looked bewildered but it looked like she had heard everything.

"Sirius? Can you take off that cloak please? I don't think there's anyone about and it gives me the creeps to talk to an invisible person." She asked, looking flustered.

Sirius slowly peeled off the cloak and Ruby's eyes focused on him, she smiled kindly.

"That was a lovely speech, i'm sorry for intruding on your privacy but I couldn't help but listen in. I come here everyday." She said, her voice husky. "How is little one?"

"Harriet is just fine, she is with a friend. She is growing up quickly. In fact, I would really like it if you could come and see her in person, of course, I might have to bring it up to Dumbledore but I would like for her to have a girl to talk to, she shouldn't always be around men."

Ruby smiled at this invitation: "I would love to. Of course she should have a female influence, I would hate for her to pick up some bad manly habits. Merlin's beard, I hope she never sees you with the flu. I am off to see Dumbledore now actually so I will bring it up. I'm sure he won't have any objections to it."

"Thanks Ruby. How have you been? Still working as keeper of the keys?"

"Yes, of course, the students are far more relaxed now that You Know Who is gone. In fact I have joined in with freeing some of the creatures he had been using. The giants aren't happy now that they don't have him to reward them for serving him anymore the ministry is working on getting them to join their side. I was actually considering maybe getting a pet, it can be quite lonely working on my own at times, especially in the forbidden forest. What I really want is a dragon but I'm sure Dumbledore would not like that at all."

"A dragon! Wow I haven't seen one before, I didn't even know they had any in the UK."

Ruby smiled and glanced down at her watch and panic flashed across her face. "Oh no, I'm sorry Sirius I am running late to meet with Dumbledore, I must get going but I will be sure to bring up possibly coming to see Harriet, I would really like to see her. Goodbye Sirius."

With that Ruby flashed a smile at Sirius and rushed off towards the road, he assumed that she would be taking the knight bus but with that pink umbrella of hers who knew what she could summon up to transport her back.

Sirius took one last look at his friends grave, placed his hand on it for a moment, trying to connect with them one last time before quickly pulling the invisibility cloak back over himself and making his way out of the graveyard and back to where he had apparated to.

As he entered the front door of Grimmauld place Sirius was delighted as Bambi quickly wobbled through the hallway from the dining room to greet him. He lowered down to her level and accepted a hug and a rather sloppy kiss on the cheek and then picked her up - watching her wobble on her feet made him very uncomfortable.

Anto suddenly appeared in the doorway of the dining room, his suspicions from before seemed to have vanished as he smiled in a friendly way towards Sirius. Seeing that Bambi had been perfectly safe with Anto reassured Sirius.

Sirius looked into Bambis face that showed him parts of his friends, Lily's eyes, James' messy hair and he was reminded that his friends weren't completely gone.