Chapter Four.

'What am I doing?' said Cedric Diggory.

'Standing,' said Harry. 'You've come back to life,' he explained.

'How?'

'I took a memory from Harry's Pensieve and used it to return you to life,' Dumbledore explained.

'Thank you,' he said. 'Thank you so much.'

'You must stay here until I have told your parents and sorted out what we are going to tell the Ministry and the public,' he continued.

Cedric nodded, 'how long before my parents know?'

'Should be around ten hours, I have to go to the Ministry to talk some sense into Fudge and then I have to go and talk to Hagrid about something that you shouldn't worry about,' said Dumbledore after seeing the look on Harry's face when he mentioned Hagrid.

'Mum, Dad, I would like you to meet someone,' said Harry.

'Oh, I love meeting people,' said James.

Harry looked at his father weirdly for a second and then continued.

'I want you to meet Cedric Diggory,' he said.

Cedric walked into the room and smiled happily and the sight of Harry's parents. These people, to him, were the only people that could understand what he had been through. Murdered by Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew, saw Harry battling him at the graveyard and returned to life.

'It's nice to meet you,' he said, shaking James' hand and then Lily's.

'You too,' said Lily. 'It's nice to meet someone who has been through exactly what we have.'

'That's what I was going to say,' he laughed.

'Cedric, you have met lots of people today,' started Dumbledore.

Cedric looked around the room of new friends he had. Sirius Black, who he thought he would never meet and be innocent, Remus Lupin, his old Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Nymphadora Tonks, a Metemorphigus, the Weasley family, the real Mad-Eye Moody and a whole bunch of other people.

He nodded politely and turned his attention back to Dumbledore.

'But the most important people you are going to meet are just behind this door and are longing to see you,' he said.

Cedric took a deep breath, he wondered if they thought less of him because he died or didn't win the Tournament.

'You're mum and dad.'

Two middle aged people, who looked slightly older than Sirius walked in the door.

Harry had seen them before, and he felt a rush of relief flow through him. It was the sort that nothing else could have brought it. The only thing that did it was giving Cedric back to his parents.

'Cedric! My boy, my beautiful boy,' was his mother's reaction.

Cedric's father was trying hard to wipe away all the tears falling from his eyes. He was standing back from Cedric, watching his son and his wife reunite.

Harry left the room, smiling. He was so glad that they could be together again. Hermione and Ron followed him.

'Wasn't that great!' squeaked Hermione.

Harry grinned. 'It sure was, I'm so happy for them all.'

'Of course you are,' said Ron. 'We all knew that he would be the first one you bring back.'

'I didn't know who else there was,' he said honestly. 'I wish Neville's parents were dead,' he said.

They gave him a strange look. 'I mean, well, they're insane, Bellatrix Lestrange made them go insane and I wish they were dead so I could bring them back,' he said quickly.

Hermione and Ron sighed with relief and nodded.

'Now so do I,' said Ron, half-laughing.

Hermione gave him a look and he took it back.

'Who are you going to do now?' she asked him.

'Why do I have to chose, doesn't anyone else want to bring someone back?' he asked, just having thought of that. Why did Dumbledore pick him to do it?

'Doesn't really matter,' said Hermione quickly. 'He might not ask you again.'

'I don't want to be asked again,' he said angrily. 'I'm not the only one with problems and relations who were dead.'

'We know,' said Hermione and she prodded Ron while Harry wasn't looking.

'Yeah, we know, Harry. Don't worry about Dumbledore.'

'Thanks guys,' he said. 'Night.'

There were only a few more weeks until they all went back to Hogwarts, and for the first time he wasn't sure he wanted to go back.

There were going to be all those people who wanted to know what happened in the maze. At least he had someone he could lean on for support and back up.

And he definitely didn't want to leave his parents. He had only got them back. He didn't want to leave Sirius again, but this time he knew he would have company and someone to laugh with and remember the good times.
'All the Marauders were back' his father had said. No one bothered to even tell him that Peter was missing; they knew he had left out Peter for a reason and no one was going to point it out to him.

Lily was pressuring James more and more to make them go see Alice and Frank. Although it wasn't what Lily wanted to do, it was something she needed to do, it wasn't like putting salt in the wound, it was going to close the wound.

She explained this to James, he put up his usual argument, and she kissed him.

'Mm, I'll think about it,' he said.

'Come on, James, please,' she pleaded.

'People will think we're ghosts or something. I don't want a bunch of people pointing and staring at me, or fainting in front of me, you know something like that,' he said.

'Shouldn't you be used to that know?' she asked.

He gave Lily a quizzical look. 'What?'

'You know, girls fainting at the mere sight of you, people pointing and staring at you because your prank of Snape was the best,' explained Lily.

James blushed and grinned. Then he shook his head. 'Lily! This is different and stop buttering me up. People won't be fainting because I'm so good looking, they'll be fainting because I'm alive and that's not something I want to hear,' he argued.

'What if we get an interview with a reporter and they publish that we're alive and Cedric is too, and then it won't be such a shock when we go out side or Cedric goes to find work,' she suggested.

'I'm not sure,' he said, eying her closely.

'Come on, we can't spend our whole lives in here, and think of it this way,' she said, getting ready to drop the bomb on her husband. 'We could clear Sirius.'

James sat up straighter. 'How?'

'We tell the reporter everything that has happened, and we get Harry in on it too, like tell the reporter that Sirius is a great god-father and stuff like that,' she said.

'People will think we're Death Eaters,' he said, with a worried look on his face.

'Dumbledore,' Lily answered.

'You know the Ministry doesn't like him at the moment, a lot of people don't and making him say that Sirius is innocent in an interview is only going to get him on more trouble.'

'You're right,' she slumped into the chair beside her.

James looked at his wife; Sirius came in, as a dog, dragging a rat in his mouth, his transformed back.

'I had to go to the bathroom and someone was in this one already so I went outside as a dog,' he explained to James.

James looked at him strangely, Sirius read him like a book.

'And then I found this rat and since Peter I eat them and I hope it's his cousin or something,' he said.

'You know Peter really isn't a rat so he can't have cousins that are,' said James.

'Well, um, maybe he did it with another rat and then they got married and she had his rat babies and his rat wife had a sister and she had kids too, so he had sort of cousins,' said Sirius quickly, trying to make up for his mistake.

'You're still as dumb as I left you,' said James.

'Does that make sense?' Lily asked.

'NO!' yelled Sirius, 'see you're still dumb too.'

'Am not,' said James angrily.

'Are too.'

'Not.'

'Too,' said Sirius and he changed back into a dog and ran away.

James looked at Lily.

'Do it,' she said, rolling her eyes, 'I don't care.'

'Thanks hon' you're the best,' he said. He wasn't surprised that she knew what he was thinking by the look if his face.

He transformed into stag form and went to look for Sirius.

About an hour later Harry went outside and found a dog and a stag playing what looked like tag.

'Can I play?' he asked.

Sirius barked and James nodded.

'Thanks,' he said, he stood still wondering what to do next when Sirius tapped his paw onto his leg. He barked twice.

'I suppose that means I'm it,' laughed Harry.

'James, Harry, Sirius – dinner!' shouted Lily as she went looking for her family. 'What the hell?' she screamed as she found her family – a stag, her human son and a dog.

'Want to play, mum?' Harry asked her.

Lily glanced back at the house where a roast dinner was waiting for them and then looked at her family.

'Why not?' she laughed as Harry tipped her.

A/N: Next chapter will take just as long. I have no idea what I am going to write!