Slight deviation from canon where Alice and Frank are in perfect health, Remus isn't dead, but James and Lily still are.


October 31st, 1998 - Godric's Hollow

The three of them crowded around the joint headstone, an unnatural quietness settling over them as they gazed at the inscription engraved in the smooth stone.

"...I can't believe it's been seventeen years," Alice murmured finally. She stood in the middle, holding the hands of two men. She gave the one on her right a comforting squeeze, as he'd lost the most from their sacrifice. Not only had his friends been murdered, but he'd had to watch their son grow up from the shadows. He'd lost all of his dearest childhood friends to the darkness.

"I still miss them," Remus whispered. "I miss hearing Lily's laugh, the way she would light up any room she walked into. I miss James's awful jokes — he'd tell them when everyone was eating supper and we'd spend the rest of the meal teasing him about it." He smiled fondly, almost sadly, as he lost himself in the memory for a mere moment.

Now Frank moved away from Alice, grasping Remus's shoulders and kissing him sympathetically on the back of his head.

"I miss them too," he said against Remus's hair. "Their deaths never got any easier to bear, knowing it could've been prevented…"

"But that man paid for his crimes — both of them did," Alice reminded him. "Both of them at the hands of their son. Their sacrifice was avenged."

"They'd be so proud of Harry," Frank added. "They'd be proud — not because he's their son, but because he's a good man."

Remus sighed. "I suppose that makes sense. I know that's what they would have wanted."

"They would've been proud of you too, Remus," Alice said. "Everything you did — everything you did to help fight in the war. You helped Harry, guided him, and shaped him into the man he is now."

"...Thank you," he whispered, as Alice's words struck a chord in his heart.

Alice raised her wand and a wreath of lilies blossomed in midair and fell to the ground next to the wreath of wilting Christmas roses. As an afterthought, Remus lifted his own wand and a shower of water sprayed out from his wand, thoroughly watering both wreaths.

The three of them stood there for a few minutes longer before the joyful laughter of children reached their ears. It was Halloween, after all, and the Muggle children would be running around on the streets in costumes and carrying bags of candy.

"We should go," Frank said wearily, Alice nodding as he spoke.

Remus let them pull him back towards the kissing gate, a weight lifted his shoulders; he had received closure from those precious minutes spent at his friends' grave.

As he walked through the kissing gate, his eyes caught on a young boy wearing a deer costume. As he stared, the boy turned and Remus glimpsed messy black and bright hazel eyes.

His breath hitched; beside him, his lovers stopped too. And then the boy moved, running down the street to join a redheaded girl wearing an elf costume. Sounds of their laughter reached Remus's ears; it sounded like the boy was teasing the girl, who stomped her foot and called him something foul.

Remus smiled. A sense of peace washed over him, not unlike the time he'd watched Voldemort's body be cremated (but this felt better in a different way, for obvious reasons). He glanced at Alice and Frank, and their matching grins told him they felt the same.

"Let's go home," he said, slipping his hand into Frank's, and murmuring one last goodbye to the graveyard behind him.

After all, he'd found a new place to call home — and he could finally let go of the one in his past.


624 words

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