Harry stood at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, the Resurrection Stone trembling in his outstretched hand. He turned it over three times, calling for his family to return to him from the world beyond life—and so they came, resuming the physical forms they once had taken and coming to stand before their summoner in the undergrowth: James and Lily and Sirius and Remus, smiling lovingly and sadly at the boy they all thought of as their own.

All of them were young and vibrant again, and the power within them was strong enough to hold back the horde of Dementors lingering behind them, hoping to feast on Harry's soul. Their lives had been short and tragic—none of them had made it to their fortieth birthday—but there was a great happiness within all of them as they stood side-by-side after so many years apart. All of them had died, in one way or another, for Harry Potter; now, they were here to help Harry do the same for the rest of the world.

"You've been so brave," Lily whispered to her son, her voice soft and warm as a summer wind.

"You are nearly there," James said. "Very close. We are…so proud of you." It was the first and only time he was able to say such a thing to his son; his voice shook with the force of it.

"Does it hurt?" Harry asked the spirits, his voice as shaky as his father's.

"Dying?" said Sirius, raising his eyebrows. "Not at all. Quicker and easier than falling asleep."

"And he will want it to be quick," Remus added. "He wants it over."

Harry's death, they all knew, would be as fast and painless as theirs had been; the Killing Curse was far from the worst way to die, at least when the reasons for dying were right.

"I didn't want you to die," Harry said. "Any of you, I'm sorry…." He turned to Remus, pleading for a forgiveness he did not need. "Right after you'd had your son…Remus, I'm sorry…."

"I am sorry too," Remus said quietly. "Sorry I will never know him…but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life." Teddy Lupin would grow up without a mother or a father, just like Harry had. Remus could only hope that his son would turn out as well as James's. He could only hope that Teddy would know how much he loved him, even in death.

He will know. There would be plenty of people left to tell him, so long as Harry succeeded.

A breeze rattled the forest, cold and strange, and Harry shivered. It was almost time. "You'll stay with me?" he whispered.

"Until the very end," James replied.

"They won't be able to see you?"

Sirius shook his head. "We are part of you," he said; "invisible to anyone else." They were only there for Harry—outside of him, they no longer existed in the physical world. They had all moved on to somewhere else, somewhere where nothing could break them apart ever again.

Harry looked to his mother. "Stay close to me," he murmured, scared and determined and astonishingly brave. The Marauders and Lily nodded, and together they turned to follow Harry deeper into the forest, staying with him, as James had promised, until the very end.