Bring Me To Life : A Continuation
by I Got Tired of Waiting

Part III :: Epilogue :: And Lead It Back Home
Seth and Lenore : Colin and Dana

Three weeks after his last visit, Seth slowly made his way into the grove. He'd been avoiding it since Harry had been buried, not certain he could talk to Lenore the way he normally did with his godfathers present as well. Stupid really, but there it was.

But he was lonely and heart-sore. Losing Lenore had left an empty space inside him he'd tried to fill by keeping busy; coming out here every day to talk with her had made it just bearable. With Harry and Severus gone as well and with the veritable death sentence he'd given his father, the portrait of his devastation was almost complete.

He approached the bower, a part of the grove he normally avoided; he couldn't see it without his mind flooding with the memories they'd had there. But today the torture seemed fitting. He removed his shoes and climbed onto the sweet soft surface. He sat down, running his hands over the velvet and remembered.

Lenore's burning sweet kisses, the passion they'd ignite with just their eyes... The fullness of her breasts grazing his skin as she trailed fire across his body with wet hot nips of her mouth while the moss underneath him tickled his back...

The incredible responsiveness of her body rising to meet him, her soft cries of pleasure as he moved over her, through her, in her... His own gasps as her ardour drove him to the edge. Lenore's face, filled with sweet concentration as she reached her fulfilment, the heady smell of the moss filling his senses as he reached his own pinnacle... The soft rapture afterwards, feeling the sun warm their entwined bodies, the breeze caressing...

She'd been as honest in her loving as she'd been about everything else in her life. They'd talk for hours here, sometimes about them, sometimes about unimportant things, sometimes about Harry and Severus. He'd always been amazed she had no qualms, no shame about her fathers, hidden or otherwise. She'd loved them and their unusual union didn't seem strange to her; they loved each other, it was proper they be together.

He'd learned to see them through her eyes long before they'd ever married. When she'd been a child, he'd watch her staunchly defend them, ignoring the taunts as irrelevant. When he'd mentioned the incidents he'd seen to Harry, he'd shrugged and said they were aware of them, but if it didn't bother Lenore, why should it bother them?

He'd always admired them, their devotion to each other, not really fooled by their banter and insults to each other. When Lenore was added to their family, Severus especially changed, making him more reachable yet oddly vulnerable. As she'd grown older, her views of them influenced him further and he grew to love them almost as much as she. They'd been his second family.

He'd been an idiot to wait as long as he had, to not see her; he'd not been surprised when Severus had heartily agreed with him when he'd said as much. Harry had just looked at him in that calm manner he had, telling him to savour every moment, regardless of its place in time. Thinking back on it, he'd realised early on in their marriage that Severus and Harry had been plotting for years to get them together. It was just one more thing to love about them.

And now they were all gone.

Leaving the bower, he put his shoes back on and walked hesitantly over to the three graves. The raw earth covering the two newest ones offended him and so, as he'd done to Lenore's grave the first time he'd visited, he settled on his haunches, placing his hands over the bare earth while whispering, "Natus."

Immediately, the surrounding grass began to creep up over the edges until they were clothed in verdant green. It seemed more... modest this way. He knew the flowers would follow in a few days; they just took longer to grow from the seed.

He moved over to Lenore's grave and sat down, his back against the small headstone. This was how he always sat when he came to talk to her and, if he was very lucky, he could almost catch sight of her when the willows filtered the rays of the setting sun through their wispy boughs.

He remembered her last days. There'd been no warning. She'd just been... sick. He and his staff had done everything they could; they never did find out what was wrong, their best efforts finally centred on making her comfortable. She'd eaten little, slept even less, and at the end had just faded away.

Severus had handed the school over to Colin the two months she'd been ill. He and Harry stayed with her as much as she wanted, which was often. He'd aged as she grew weaker, his humour and banter growing more forced as time went by. Harry stood by his side, seemingly unaffected, but Seth had seen the private times when Severus had held him while he cried.

They'd brought her out here to the grove a few times so she could feel the sun, the last time only days before she died. Severus and Harry had stayed a while, but soon left so they could be private. It was the last time they'd been here until brought by others the final time.

He'd held her gently and they talked little, each knowing it wouldn't be long now. When he'd brought her back asleep, she never woke again. Two days later, she was gone.

Severus and Harry were devastated. He'd been numb. Ever present, his parents had stayed at the castle for a while to help them all through the first weeks of their grief. It was his dad, of all people, who'd suggested he come here to talk to her. He said he still went occasionally to Draco's grave and found comfort when he did.

So he came here. And he found the same comfort. He knew the conversations were all in his head, were just his thoughts, but it helped sometimes to see things through her perspective and he always returned feeling better than when he'd arrived.

He hoped to feel that way today as well.

"Hello, love," he said simply, unashamed with talking to her aloud.

He waited; there was no reply.

He tried again. "Lenore? Lenore, love, there has been so much happening... Please, I need to talk to you."

He waited. "Please, Lenore, answer me. Don't leave me here alone."

With dismal recognition, he realised she would never again answer him in this place and in the depths of his heart he knew true despair. He rolled to his side on the grave and wept. Digging his hands into the grass and the soil under it, he cried out his pain into the ground. He lay there for quite some time, the grass absorbing his bitter tears. Eventually, he fell asleep.

And he dreamed. He dreamed she was in his arms, her silky kisses--never to be missed--on his lips, her arms wrapped tightly around him; her love surrounded him like an old favourite blanket on a cold winter's day. And it melted, the frost in which he'd encased his heart when awake was gone. Lenore was here and he never intended to let her go.

Colin was having the strangest dream. He was walking towards the grove with Harry, only Harry wasn't dead, he was young. There was an exuberance about him Colin knew had been there once, but had been tempered out of him by the time he'd got to know him. He liked this young man.

"So you see, we made the bower for privacy," he was saying, his eyes alight. "We had so much fun making it, and using it, and sharing it with others. It's important you understand it's yours and Dana's now."

"That would be just a bit macabre, don't you think, with the three of you already in there?" This whole conversation was surreal.

"Move us. I assure you we don't care."

Colin laughed. That was probably true.

As they were about to enter the bower, Harry stopped, suddenly urgent. "I've not much time. It was wonderful to see you again, but I must go back soon, and I've yet to prepare you for what's inside."

"There's more in there now than there was three weeks ago?" Colin asked drolly.

His face earnest, Harry replied, "It's Seth. He joined Lenore this evening and crossed over. Most unusual, but he'd lost his will to live. I was sent to inform you he was here, so his shell could be removed with dignity."

Colin was at a loss for words. So many people gone. He felt uncharacteristically lonely and fervently wished Dana was here with him.

"I have one more message. Move us, Colin; the sentiment burying us all here was misplaced. The time away from the grove after Lenore died injured us in ways we could never have foreseen. We should not have placed her here."

"Where? Where would you rather be? Why now? Why not earlier?" Colin asked reasonably.

"The castle. We should be in the castle. We didn't understand until after we were gone that we were never meant to leave. Bury us in the dungeon... there's a crypt... ask Dana to find it for you. We buried Albus there along with all the other headmasters and their families. I don't know why we thought we would be any different, but that's another story. Put all four of us there, put the whole world there for all it matters, but cleanse this place of our presence. Make it habitable for the living again."

They stepped into the grove. "Albus built this place for us long before Severus and I met, before we were even born. Somehow he knew we would be together, knew we would need someplace private..." He stopped and chuckled. "Although the old bugger still won't admit he planned how we got together."

He placed his hand on Colin's arm. "This is a place of life, of celebration, of quiet private loving, of escape from the prying eyes of the castle. Use it as it was intended. Spend some of your love and passion out here. Make this yours and Dana's special place. Please... for me... for Severus... for all of us who claimed this place and made it sanctuary. I promise... you will never regret it."

And he was gone.

Colin woke with a start. It had only been a dream. Then he saw a willow branch on the table by his bed, and he wondered. Knowing he'd be unable to go to sleep until he verified things, he climbed out of bed and donned his dressing gown over his pyjamas. Feeling rather silly, he strolled out of the castle in his slippers down to the grove, the moon and stars lighting his way.

The place was eerily quiet. Feeling like an interloper, he walked into the centre. He toed off his slippers and stepped into the middle of the bower. A feeling of peace like he'd never known before stole over him as his toes sank into the damp moss. He remembered the smell of it from Harry's and Severus' Remembrance, the aroma meaning nothing to him at the time, but bringing with it now his own share of memories of the times he'd spent with them.

With an effort, he pulled his awareness back into the present and looked around him. Off to the side, just as Harry had said, Seth lay on Lenore's grave, the full moon lighting the small smile on his face.

While saddened with Seth's passing, Colin was more pleased that Seth was finally home.

Over the course of the next week, Colin once again presided over four funerals, one for Seth plus three relocation ceremonies held in private in the crypt of the castle.

Once Dana had spoken to the castle, they'd beheld with awe the final resting place of the Headmasters of Hogwarts. He didn't quite know what they'd been expecting, but this austere chamber with its twisted columns and vaulting arched ceiling, dappled with sunlight from hidden sources, wasn't at all the creepy place they'd imagined.

Each resting place was marked by a simple square of gold set into the stone. Standing on any plaque allowed one to experience the essence of the person buried beneath. Intrigued, he'd stepped on Albus Dumbledore's and was shocked when he felt merry and wicked and sage at the same time. Jumping off quickly, he began to understand why Harry and Severus always called him 'the old bugger'.

Colin decided he wouldn't mind being buried here himself and shared a laugh with Dana when she pointed out his acceptance was timely as he'd no choice in the matter.

There'd been a 'discussion' over Seth and Lenore. Colin thought they should be buried with Severus and Harry since Lenore was their daughter; tradition dictated she be buried with her spouse. Ron and Hermione, overwhelmed by everything happening in the last month, had maintained they wanted them buried with Draco. It was Dana's great-grandmother, Daisy, who suggested the final solution: move Draco. When Ron and Hermione expressed their pleasure with the compromise, and Dana said the castle had no objections, Colin agreed and arrangements were made to bring him here in a few weeks.

The next day, they'd all come to Hogwarts to bury Severus and Harry along with Seth and Lenore. Dana stood at their resting places and uttered the spell the castle had taught her. Rumbling contentedly, it opened four rectangular crypts in the floor and the closed wooden caskets were levitated in place. Colin read the interment ritual, feeling easier than he had for weeks; there was a calm about the place which made light the burden.

When the ceremony was done, Fawkes flew into the room, crying out her song, the filtered sunlight making her glow. As she glided over the open crypts, the floor of the castle folded over each one in her wake, encasing them within itself. As she flew by for a second pass, one gold-tipped feather fell on each of the tombs. Four gold markers appeared on each spot where her feathers fell.

The party stood a few moments in wonder and left the room in silence. Colin knew he would come back one day to see what Severus and Harry's markers felt like; it would be interesting to say the least.

The next night, Colin took Dana to the mossy bower in the willow grove down by the lake. And under the moon and the stars, they unequivocally made it their private sanctuary.

TBC