Chapter 1

Charlie put a tender hand on her bulging stomach and sighed, looking at her new home. Harry had pulled off the cover to reveal…a camper van. She tried to smile, knowing how much he'd worked on it, and it was better than staying in motel after motel, but it was still…a camper van.

"So…" he stood nervously, eager for an answer. "What do you think?"

She finally managed a grin, laughing at his enthusiasm. "It's really, really, er, it's really something!"

She walked over and kissed him, and he beamed. He put his hands on her stomach and looked in her sparkling green eyes.

"I know things haven't been great these few months, but you understand that we can't really afford a house yet, and this way we can move around still, you know, figure out where we wanna stay." He looked hopefully at her, but saw her face had drooped. "You're missing your parents aren't you?"

"No, no, not my dad, he, well I hardly knew him, but things were finally getting together with my mum, she was becoming a bit more, well, motherly, and I suppose I didn't like just leaving her like that."

It had been two months since they left, and they had Apparated far from home, keeping their heads down, not talking to anybody. They hadn't seen another wizarding person in all this time, and were now planning to resurface.

Charlie's biggest fear was her father finding them. Surely, now he had worked up enough hate to want to kill her too, she remembered what he had done to Draco and shuddered. She hoped Callie wasn't suffering from his temper. No, she'd be fine. Voldemort would never hurt Callie. And she always had her best friend, Narcissa, who would probably be over her son by now…

"Penny for them?" Harry raised his eyebrows at her brooding face.

"Sorry. I just hope my mum's all right. And…I'm still terrified my dad will find us." She tried to put on a happy face through her worry.

"Don't worry. I'm sure they'll be fine." They both got in the van and Harry drove awkwardly across the county until he got to a quiet village. He looked at a map. "I think this is it." He said, frowning.

"Where are we going?" Charlie asked.

"You'll see darling, you'll see."

They got out of the van and Harry led her to a house. He knocked on the door, and soon, there stood Remus Lupin. He looked shocked.

"Harry! My god, we thought you'd disappeared, come in come I-oh." He saw Charlie's stomach and bit his lip. "So you two are…you're actually together? Even though she's, her father was…"

"Voldemort, yes. And you can speak to me you know."

"I'm sorry, really I am. And look, I'm sorry about your mother, but she did a great thing, a really wonderful thing, mistake though it was." He patted Charlie on the shoulder.

"W-what are you talking about? What about my mum?" she glared at him.

"Oh god, you don't know… you really don't know… gosh, I don't know how to tell you this…" he scratched his balding head, and told the couple everything. He told them how it had been heard that Voldemort was gone, and had killed his wife on the way, until Narcissa Malfoy told the truth, and went mad because of her overwhelming grief. He also told them about her sister, Bellatrix, so distraught over the Dark Lord's death that she was determined to carry on his work.

But Charlie had not heard much of his tale. She was quietly sobbing, mouth and eyes screwed up, tears falling in a flood onto her protruding belly. The only people she had known as parents were gone, and she had never got a chance to know them, but this wasn't why she was crying. She had never been able to explain her absence to them properly, but this wasn't the reason either.

She was crying at the simple beauty of her parent's deaths, knowing they were now at peace, with the world and each other, and this comforted her, to know the parents she had grown up wishing she were not connected to had finally given her a reason to love them.