A/N: OMG! I don't know what happened! On Monday, for some reason, I thought it was Thursday. I wasn't even thinking of posting a chapter, let alone re-reading it! I lost touch with reality, I guess... There were Mayor elections in Brazil, and it got me pretty distracted, it might have been that. Anyway, I'm very sorry about the delay!

A Snowflake With a Flower Inside

When Lily stepped off the train and saw her mother waiting for her at the platform, she couldn't help but place every item she was holding on the floor and ran to her like a little frightened child.

Violet, Rachel and Remus welcomed Lily and Hector with tight hugs and kisses to their cheeks. Rachel announced that they had decided to spend Christmas at her apartment in Edinburgh, just to diversify a little, and that they were to catch the next train, to which they had already purchased tickets.

It had been over a year since Lily had been to Edinburgh – in fact, it had been over a year since she had spent a long time in a muggle environment – and it caused her a strange feeling of detachment to walk through the Princess Street and down the Leven Street until they arrived at Valleyfield Street. Remus asked a few questions about the function of the objects in the stores, and a few questions about the monuments on the street.

"Is this where you hid?" asked Remus when they finally arrived at the right building.

"Yes," said Violet, looking at the white door and at the number seven nailed above it and running her fingers through Lily's hair."This is where Lily grew up."

Lily didn't look, but she knew her mother had her usual vague expression on.

"Let's get inside, I'm freezing," said Rachel unlocking the door.

The group walked into the building and climbed the stairs to the apartment. Lily had forgotten what it was like to be in a muggle house. There was no fireplace and no objects moving on their own. There was a TV and a fridge. There was central heating – wizards still had to come up with something to imitate that and warm up the dungeons in Hogwarts –. There were no brooms besides Lily's own Cleansweep Seven, but there was Hector's bicycle.

"I bet you can't ride one of these anymore," he said, catching Lily's eyes on the object.

"We'll see about that tomorrow," she replied.

Then they went to put their trunks in Hector's bedroom while Violet and Remus took their luggage to the guests room, in which there were two single beds.

They ate dinner, and then Remus offered to wash the dishes, but was surprised when Rachel told him to just put them in the dishwasher. "Muggles sure managed to find their way around without magic," he said.

"Wait until you see the remote control," Rachel joked, and Remus seemed puzzled.

"It uses invisible waves to control the TV," said Hector. He and Lily had begun organizing the dishes in the dishwasher, taking the task from Remus' hands.

"My mother was a muggle, but I don't remember her mentioning invisible waves." Remus said.

"There are many practical things we invented, especially at the time of the war, because all of a sudden men were out fighting and women had to work."

"Which war?" asked Remus, and it was Rachel's turn to look puzzled.

"You don't learn about the first and second world war? I understand it's a school for wizards, but those wars had a really significant impact on how the world functions," said Rachel. She was a Linguistics professor at the university, but she had a tremendous passion for History.

"Wizards were fighting a different war at the time. There was a dark wizard trying to take over the world and enslave muggles," said Violet steely. "Nothing new under the sun."

"Why is it that the magical folk are so eager to attack us?"

"I think it's the statute of secrecy. Before that muggles used to hunt witches. Many pure blood families feel like wizards should be protected, instead of muggles, and we never quite stopped hiding," said Remus.

"We could live in harmony with muggles, and the pureblood supremacists would still not be satisfied. They just don't feel like they have enough power," said Violet.

Lily looked at Hector, silently asking if it was the time to bring up the subject of the Chamber of Secrets. She knew he hadn't told his mother, afraid he would be pulled out of Hogwarts until the matter had been taken care of, but she felt it would be important to let her know, and now seemed like a good time since Violet was there to reassure Rachel that Hector would be safe. But Hector discreetly shook his head, and Lily remained silent.

On that night, they played Clue at the dining table before going to their rooms. Lily had a feeling of reassurance she hadn't had in a long time when she lay on the mattress on the floor, listening to Hector's slow breathing. For once, she was absolutely sure she wouldn't wake up to a pain in her wrist, or panic thinking that Hector had been the next victim of the Slytherin's monster.

The four days until Christmas went by faster than Lily would have liked. Every morning the children would go out and walk at the Meadows, but only tried to bike on the first day. Hector was right, it was definitely harder than she remembered and she much preferred her broom – but that could have been because of the amount of clothing she had to wear to keep warm. Hector, on the other hand, was happy to use a means of transport that allowed him to stay on the ground. On the second day, however, they had snow to play with, and the bike was left behind. They even had a snow war with a few former schoolmates, even though they had very little to talk about afterwards, and kept avoiding the questions about where they were studying now. Later, when they decided it was time to go home and get warm, they would eat and help with house chores. Then, the children would watch while Remus, Violet and Rachel had long conversations comparing wizarding and muggle history, and after that they would have dinner and either play a muggle board game or watch a movie. To Lily's surprise, Remus' greatest interest towards the TV didn't come from the fact that there were images in a box, but from the animations they watched. "Muggles have invented their own moving paintings," he had said. Then Hector brought one of his many books to show how animations were made by overlapping drawings manually or digitally.

Christmas Eve was amazing. There wasn't magic going on like at Hogwarts, of course, but in Lily's opinion Christmas was always a magical day. Lily and Hector helped Violet cook, peeling potatoes and washing pots for her as she prepared what looked like a delicious dinner and desert for them, while Remus and Rachel decorated the apartment with Christmas lights and glass ornaments. Remus conjured a Christmas tree because Rachel had been grading university articles and hadn't managed to buy one, and he and Violet had run out of muggle currency. When they were done, Violet conjured a tray of gingerbread cookies for them, because the oven was occupied by a beautiful and juicy-looking turkey.

"I thought you would be cooking without magic," said Rachel, biting one of the cookies.

"I was, but I forgot about the snacks," said Violet grinning and biting her own cookie.

Once again, Lily noticed how much more talkative her mother had become since Remus' arrival at the Lakeside. She didn't quite remember ever seeing her mother smile so broadly. In fact, she didn't remember her mother ever looking so beautiful, and for the first time in her life she could finally catch a glimpse of the true Violet, the brave witch who had fought a war and lived a great love; who was a kind friend to those around her; who would laugh and joke- she looked so uncomplicated! It looked nothing like the melancholic highschool teacher who had raised her, who hadn't shed a tear in her husband's funeral. Lily took a bite of her cookie, still watching that new Violet who had come out of that old monotone shell.

Dinner time finally came a few hours later, and when Lily tried the roast turkey she decided that her mother's cooking had somehow improved too. The taste of the food and the little merry noises of happy people eating together filled Lily's heart. For desert, there was chocolate pudding, and then they all sat down to play a board game on the living room carpet, all covered in blankets. They were all still deciding which one they would play when, all of a sudden, Remus burst into tears, covering his face with one hand. Violet quickly got up on her knees and wrapped her arms around him, and Rachel seemed to not quite know what to do, and to be honest neither did Lily.

"What is it?" Rachel asked, cautiously resting her hand on his shoulder.

"I never thought I would have a happy Christmas again," sobbed Remus.

In response, Lily crawled to him and hugged her godfather as tight as she could. She noticed he was hugging her too, and felt his tears fall on her hair. Then, a warmness on her back told her that Hector had joined the embrace. Lily thought she could stay there forever, surrounded by all her family.

They remained in that warm pile of people for a while until everyone's necks started to get sore. Violet decided that what they needed was more chocolate and went to the kitchen to prepare mugs of hot chocolate – which she preferred to do with her own hands rather than conjure – and Remus went outside to breathe some cold air. Not quite knowing why, Lily decided to go with him.

For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, Lily stepped into the common outside area of the building where she had lived all her life. Over a year before, she had been laying on that same concrete floor with Hector, stargazing, when they first received their letters from Hogwarts. It felt like a lifetime had passed since that day, and she could barely recognise that girl from the memory as herself. Still not quite knowing why, Lily raised her hand to hold Remus', and the man looked down at her.

"Lily," he started in a soft voice. "Do you remember I promised to search for a picture of your father for you?"

"Did you find it?"

"Yes. And something else too," Remus crouched down to look at Lily in the eyes. "I had forgotten I had it. I was going to wait until tomorrow morning, so I could give you a proper Christmas present, but I think I should give it to you now."

He took one hand to his pocket and took a small parcel, which he handed to Lily. She took it and carefully looked back at her godfather.

"Go ahead," he said.

Lily's shaking fingers pulled the string tying the parcel and started to unfold it, then she stopped when she felt a different kind of paper beneath the parcel, her heart racing. She took a deep breath and quickly pulled the picture out of the parcel.

It was a picture of her mother dancing in a cosy living room along with a darkly handsome man with fair skin, lustrous black hair going down to his shoulders, and striking grey eyes. Eyes exactly like Lily's in colour. He had elegant looks, aristocratic even. He spinned that young, joyful version of Violet around and both looked at the camera, laughing. Lily noticed she had never seen her mother dance, even though it looked like she excelled at it by the way how she moved in the picture.

"I do have his eyes, don't I?" Lily asked, with a hint of a smile playing on her lips.

"You do," Remus said.

"She looks so happy here."

"It was on Christmas Eve too, the last Christmas we all spent together," Remus said. "We were all together, James, Lily, Sirius, Violet and me. Peter was on a mission on that day."

Lily kept looking at the picture of the dancing couple, trying to memorize every aspect of it. She loved the way Violet and Sirius looked at each other, how they seemed able to communicate with their eyes, and how they seemed to be enjoying each other's company so much. Looking at the picture, Lily wondered if, at that time, her mother already knew she would have to leave. Was Lily already developing inside of her? No, it couldn't be. There were only three months between Christmas and Lily's birthday. Back at the time when the picture was taken, Violet was still sure that she would spend the rest of her life in the world she was born in, with the people she loved.

"There's something else in the parcel," said Remus.

Lily finally took her eyes away from the picture and looked back at the parcel she still held. She turned it upside down over her stretched hand, and a small chain fell on her palm. She raised the chain to her eyes. It was a beautiful metalwork, but what caught her eyes the most was the pendant. It looked like glass, but was too delicate to be glass – or to have been made by human hands at all –. It had the pattern of a snowflake, but not that cliché shape reproduced endlessly on cheap jewelry, but like the tiny fractals had actually grown from the center instead of being glued or attached to it. And in the middle, inside the very center of the crystal, was a minuscule lilac.

"This is beautiful," Lily murmured.

"Your father left it with me, to keep and give it back to your mother in case he died. She allowed me to give it to you, so you would have something from him," said Remus.

"It is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Lily whispered. "I wish I could have known him."

"You remind me of him so much," Remus continued. "Not just your eyes, all of you. How much you like being outside, how far you are willing to go to protect your loved ones- even the way you talk when you are angry, it's all him. The man I knew would be proud to have a daughter like you," Remus said, and Lily smiled.

"Can you tell me more?"

"I think you should ask your mother."

"Do you think she will tell me?"

"I'm absolutely sure she will," he said. "Come on, let's go back inside."

Lily nodded, her eyes still on the necklace pending from her hand. They returned to the living room at the exact same time as Violet was returning with the hot chocolate, and the look in her eyes told Lily that she had seen the necklace. But against her expectations, Violet didn't look sad or longing, but instead she smiled.

"I was surprised that the necklace still existed," she said.

Rachel and Hector looked at the object in Lily's hand.

"Let me see it," said Rachel, and carefully took the necklace and held it close to her face. "This is beautiful. The pattern of the crystal is- sublime, it's the only word I could use. It looks like it happened naturally instead of being made."

"That is an enlarged snowflake with a flower grown inside of it," said Violet.

Rachel's eyes widened. "Magic truly is amazing, isn't it?" she said. "Humans can make brilliant things. We can create and replicate things with our hands, we can use waves to control images in a box, we can travel to the moon and back again- but the simplest natural phenomenon is still more beautiful than our most complex statue. And the person who made this managed to trap all that beauty in an unmelting snowflake with a flower inside."

"Sirius made it to me," Violet said. "The lilac is the symbol of a first love in floriography."

"That is very romantic," said Rachel.

"He is- or he was, I don't know at this point. I suppose I was a bit of a disappointment to him," joked Violet, with a hint of bitterness in her voice.

"By the last time I met him, he still believed you would meet again."

"Well, that was before spending a decade in Azkaban," Violet cut him. "Anyway, about the Necklace, there used to be a match to it, but it was just a plain snowflake. There was an enchantment that would let us talk and locate each other if we allowed. It was quite useful by the time we were in Hogwarts, since we were in different houses; and even more useful during the war- it saved our lives when we were battling Voldemort."

"Hm. I always wondered how they found us."

"This is why I left it behind."

"Do you think he still has his necklace?" Lily asked, considering the possibility of trying to actually use it.

"I can teach you the spell if you want to try, but it's hard to believe they would allow magical necklaces in Azkaban."

"You haven't tried to use it?" Rachel asked.

"I wouldn't know what to say," said Violet uncomfortably.

"When did he give it to you?" asked Lily, trying to bring her mother back to a happy memory.

Violet paused for a long time before answering, her bright green eyes seemed out of focus. A soft smile slowly formed on her lips, and Lily could swear she had seen her mother blush a little bit. But her smile faded, and when Violet finally spoke, the first words sounded painful. But she spoke nonetheless.

"It was a Christmas present, in fifth year. We were in the courtyard. Sirius was forbidden to go home except for the summer holidays, and Molly and Arthur were so busy with Bill and Charlie that I usually stayed at Hogwarts too; so we almost always spent Christmas together. We had a snowball fight which Dumbledore himself called the greatest battle Hogwarts had ever seen, because we conjured snowmen armies to help each side – of course we were given detention for that – and after that, when we were both soaked and freezing, it started snowing again. Then Sirius carefully stretched his arm and two snowflakes landed on his hands and he showed them to me. I remember saying that I wished that they could last longer, instead of melting on his hands like that. Sirius took out his wand and made those pendants for us. Then, with time, we added more spells to them."

By the end of her story, Violet's voice no longer sounded tearful, but joyful instead.

"I wish I could have seen that snow battle," Lily said.

"Which spell did he use? To stop the snow from melting, I mean."

"Actually, I don't know. Sirius was practicing silent spells at the time, he rarely used words. But I suppose it is the same kind of spell they use at Honeydukes' ice creams."

"We are not allowed to go to Hogsmeade yet," said Lily. She knew about Honeydukes because her friends from the Quidditch team sometimes brought sweets from their trips to the nearby village, which they shared after particularly long practices, but she had never seen the non-melting ice cream.

"Oh, yes… I forgot!" said Violet. "Well, they have non-melting ice cream and I suppose the spell Sirius used to make the pendants works in the same way."

"Can muggles go to Hogsmeade?" Rachel asked.

"Hm… Not on their own, definitely. But I suppose it works like Diagon Alley, It's invisible until you see it," said Remus.

Rachel nodded and stated that when Lily and Hector were allowed to go to Hogsmeade, she expected them to send her some interesting wizarding candies, which triggered Violet into listing every single type of wizarding candy possibly found within Great Britain and their differences and similarities to the muggle ones. Once again Lily noticed how more talkative her mother had become in the past few months since Remus had arrived in their lives, and smiled.

"Why on earth would anyone make a candy that feels like a frog in your stomach?" Rachel laughed, and then paused for a moment, thinking.

"I'm writing a book," she suddenly revealed. "About being a muggle mother to a wizard."

Remus and Violet turned to face her at the same time.

"You don't mean to publish it-"

"Not for muggles, of course," said Rachel. "But I often find myself wishing that I had a manual to help me deal with all of it – with sending my son to a school where people like to play a game in which they might be knocked out of their flying brooms by magic balls. Most of the time, you are my manual," she said to Violet.

"It's good to know I'm someone's manual, because I am certainly not mine."

"You know what I mean, you know this world better than I ever will. And I want to help other parents who are going through this, I want them to know they are not alone."

"This is a great idea, mom," said Hector.

"Yes, this is such a good idea! And you are so smart, I'm sure you will help lots of muggle parents, aunt Rachel."

"For a while you were my guide to what was normal for a muggle child… I never knew how to help Lily with math homework, or muggle history. And now you will be able to guide many more people."

Lily never thought she would have a happy Christmas at home again. She had thought her previous Christmas was a good one because she had spent it at Hogwarts, but that moment, as she sat in the living room with her family, proved that she had been wrong.

As she laid in bed, she felt deeply happy, even though her ear was squeezed against the wall, because she and Hector had the terrible idea of sharing the bed like they had done at the Lakeside, where Lily had a double bed. They had planned to talk into the night, but Hector was already sound asleep, and now Lily was listening to the muffled voices coming from the next room.

"Thank you for giving Lily the necklace. It's important for her to have at least some connection to Sirius."

"Are you going to teach her the spell to contact him?"

"I don't know. Maybe, if she asks."

"I don't think you should."

"Why?"

"Because we don't know. Right now, she knows the memories we have of Sirius, she knows the good Sirius. I don't want her to- I mean… the person who Sirius is in the present, after all those years in Azkaban… I think this person could poison her."

"It's not my decision anymore. I have kept her apart from him for long enough, if she wants to contact him I won't deny her that," said Violet. "And besides, I still might get him out."

It took some time for Remus to answer. Lily was starting to feel the sleepiness get to her when she finally heard his voice again.

"Have you thought about what it means?"

"Hm?"

"Have you considered what it means to get him out? He'll be back into your life, and Lily's. Are you sure you want that? I mean… he'll be a disturbed man."

"I'll be lucky if he still wants to look at me," said Violet. "Look at what I did to him. If I had gathered the courage to tell him about Lily, maybe he wouldn't have gone after Peter. Maybe he would have stayed with us, we could have been happy, but instead I kept my secret and this happened. It's not a matter of wanting anything, I owe him that."

"What if after the trial you find that he is actually guilty?"

It was Violet's turn to be silent.

"Then I owe him nothing," she finally said, and sighed. "Merlin, it would kill me. And it would break Lily's heart."

"You know that I support you, right? Even though I don't think he is innocent. It's just that, like you said, it would destroy you both. And I just got you back, I'm not ready to lose you again."

"I understand. But I'm not asking you to let me go anywhere, you just might have to pull me out of a very deep hole."

"But you already are in a deep hole. Vi, when I met you earlier this year… you barely looked like yourself. You are depressed, you have been so for over a decade, I'm worried about you."

"I know. I'm worried too. I want so badly to be happy… and right now I feel like I am almost there, and I don't want to ruin it. But if I leave Sirius to rot in Azkaban, I will never be happy again, because I will have to live my entire life knowing that I have betrayed him. If I get him out, even if he hates me, I'll find a way."

"Sirius could never hate you."

"I kept his daughter away from him. He will always be twelve years behind me in knowing Lily."

"I am twelve years behind in knowing her too. But when he sees her smile, that will be enough to forgive you. It was more than enough for me."

"Her smile looks exactly like his," Violet chuckled.

"She has the same dimples."

Lily quietly moved the muscles around her mouth into a smile and carefully touched them with the tip of her fingers, trying to feel the shape of her expression. She knew her mouth looked like Violet's, but she never thought much about her smile, which truly didn't resemble her mother's – although Lily hadn't witnessed so many real smiles coming from Violet through the years.

She was still touching the dimples on her soft cheeks when she fell asleep.

On Christmas morning, Lily woke up early and found herself squeezed against the wall by Hector. It was impossible to go back to sleep in that condition, so she decided to get up and see if someone was already awake. She met Remus in the kitchen, clearly trying to make breakfast.

"I have no idea how any of this works," he said to her after noticing her arrival.

"I'm starting to forget too," she answered. "But it's not hard. This is how you turn the stove on, see? This releases the gas, and this creates a spark which lights the fire."

Remus thanked her and started making eggs and boiling water for coffee. Lily asked if he wanted help, but he said he was happy to make breakfast for everyone, so she sat at the table in the living room, noticing a pile of presents under the Christmas Tree. She recognized Rachel's clumsy way to wrap presents on a few of them, and two of them were obviously sweaters from Molly. There were four small parcels of the same paper that had covered the picture and the necklace Remus had given her on the previous night.

"I see you are already wearing the necklace," he commented.

"Yes, I really liked it," she said. "It's beautiful."

"I remember when your mother and Sirius started to wear their matching necklaces."

Lily didn't quite know what to answer, so she remained silent while Remus quietly reminisced. At some point, he finished serving breakfast for everyone, and coincidentally it was at the exact same time as Violet and Rachel arrived at the living room, both in their pajamas.

"Good morning," said Lily.

"Is Hector up yet?" asked Violet.

"Not yet."

"Hm, I'm going to wake him up so you can open your presents together after breakfast," said Rachel.

Remus placed the scrambled eggs on plates and brought them to the table, and the cups with coffee afterwards. Then Violet conjured a mug of milk with cinnamon and sugar for each of the children. Hector joined them a moment later.

Half an hour later they were all sitting around the tree and the pile of presents. First, Lily opened Molly's package, where she found a sweater of the colours of her house. Hector's was of a plain and deep blue. Rachel let out a giggle of joy when she found Violet had given her a copy of "Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them," by Newton Scamander. Rachel gave Remus a copy of Wolf's Hour, which was both about a werewolf and World War II – Remus laughed and said it looked like a book he would enjoy reading. Lily opened her second present, which was a magical string to tie her hair in quidditch matches – Remus said it would never slip, and would prevent her curls from getting tangled to the string, or to break under its pressure. Hector got a beautiful set of wizarding chess with very realistic pieces.

Lily saw Violet opening a similar parcel which contained a piece of parchment, which she looked for a moment and then gazed at Remus. She carefully slipped the parchment back into the parcel and blinked heavily several times. Lily decided it would be best not to ask what it was. Violet was trying to disguise her sudden emotions by opening Rachel's present to her, which was a fancy cookbook. So Lily herself tried to push away her curiosity by opening her last present, which was from Violet. It was a small rectangular wooden box with a sliding cover, the size of a pencil case. Lily slided the lid to open the box and reveal a set of watercolour brushes.

"Next year you will be able to take the magic painting elective class," Violet explained. "These are the magical brushes you will need then."

Lily looked at her mother with glittering eyes and a huge smile, unable to express herself with words. She had almost forgotten about the magical paintings, such had been the distress of the past few months. Actually Lily could barely remember when it had been the last time she had drawn anything at all. She didn't have any ink at the moment, so she carefully closed the box and went to place it in her trunk.

Though the next few days, Lily tried to ignore that her mother had deliberately hidden information from her again. She knew it was probably something very private which had touched a sensitive spot, and that ultimately she had every right to retain whatever information she wanted, but Lily was burning with curiosity. She was so curious and determined to find out the truth, she didn't even tell Hector about the parchment she had seen in her mother's hand.

And it wasn't until New Year morning that Lily finally got her hands on the secret letter. Lily had woken up early for some reason after spending almost the entire previous night out in town.

It had been a very cold night, and everyone was in heavy coats over their pretty party clothes. There was a strong wind blowing on their faces, but the city was so full of life that Lily didn't care. It was almost midnight, and they had just had dinner and were going to see the fireworks by the castle. There were artists performing in the street, there was music and there were people dancing. The scent of food took the air, and so did the slightly sour smell of sweat mixed with alcohol of the partying people. They had gotten as close to the castle as they could be without getting into the tumultuous dancing crowd – which meant that they were actually quite far away from the source of the fireworks, which bothered Lily a little bit, because she adored the sight of the exploding colours in the sky. Hector, on the other hand, was easily annoyed by loud noises and was actually pretty happy about not getting too close to what he called "a controlled blast", even though Lily had reminded him that he was actually exposed to much more dangerous things than fireworks on a daily basis at school. Finally the countdown to midnight began, and the crowd was yelling each number with a thrill, and Lily felt her chest pulsating with excitement, when the counting finally got down to one and the colorful fire began to be casted on the dark night sky, Lily couldn't take her eyes away for a long time. She felt absolutely fulfilled.

They had only gone home hours after, at around two in the morning, when the children could barely stand up. Only then, when she was laying on the mattress on the floor, did Lily realize Violet had barely spoken a word on that night, and she hated whatever it was that Remus had given her for Christmas. She hated it so much, it scared her.

It couldn't even be called a morning, because Lily had woken up before dawn. She had dreamt of a voice calling for her. But it wasn't quite calling for her, was it? The voice in her sleep had been calling for Violet. It wasn't quite a voice either- it was more of a howl, if anything. The sound of it had sounded so tortured that Lily woke up with her heart aching and unable to go back to sleep, so she decided to get up and go watch cartoons on the TV – it had been a while since she had watched muggle cartoons, because there were no TV's in the wizarding world, and she had been surprised to find she still enjoyed them. But when Lily got to the living room, something on the sofa caught her eyes. It was the old, yellowed parchment Violet had taken out of the parcel on Christmas morning.

Lily looked around anxiously, half expecting her mother to enter the living room. She walked to the bedrooms and quietly rested her ear against each door, and sighed after hearing soft breathing behind each of them. Then, feeling more secure, she walked back to the livingroom and closed the door behind herself. She turned on the TV on a cartoon channel, turned down the volume until it was nearly inaudible, and sat on the sofa in an angle at which she could see both the door and the TV. She checked the door again, still closed. With her heart racing to the point where she could feel her cheeks burning, Lily took a deep breath and took the parchment.

It had a fancy handwriting all over it.

Violet,

If you are reading this letter, it means that something bad happened to me and we couldn't meet again. It is a shame. I can barely imagine a world in which I can never see your beautiful face again. Life has been weighing on me for the past year since you left. Nothing is quite the same without you, and I find myself caring less and less for my own fate. Perhaps it is just because of the growing presence of the Dementors around us.

We are losing this war, Freckles. I can hardly see any hope for us. We are doomed. Perhaps that is why you left, maybe you saw it before I could. I honestly can't blame you for despairing, as much as I desire to.

Sometimes, very rarely, I see hope. I see hope when I am fighting alongside the Order. I can see hope when I look at James and Lily and I see their love for each other, and I learn from them that love can endure war. I know it can, because they had a baby. A baby boy, Harry is his name, and he looks just like James, but with Lily's eyes. I mostly see him through pictures Lily sends me every month, because they are hiding under the Fidelius Charm now. You would love to meet him. I am his godfather, and I can't wait to teach him how to ride a broom – James and I have a bet about which position he will play in quidditch. James wants him to be a chaser like him, but I think he will be a seeker. I can tell because of the way how his clever little eyes follow James' wand around –. I wish more than anything in the world that we could have had what they have. I wish that you could have stayed and that I could have proven to you that our love was stronger than all the horrible things happening around us.

However, if my love wasn't enough for you, then I wish that you find something that is. I hope that you find happiness away from all this death. I want you to know that I do not resent you, and that I trust that you did what was best. Please, if you receive this letter from Remus, don't blame yourself for whatever misfortune happened to me. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with your decision to leave. Enjoy your life, Violet. Make it be the best life you can have, for both of us.

Always yours,

Sirius.

Lily slowly placed the letter back to the exact spot she had found it and turned her face back at the TV, although her mind was completely absent of whatever plotline the Pink Panther was following on that episode. Somehow, her heart felt even tighter than when she had woken up.

A/N: Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it. Please, leave your comment so I can know if you are enjoying the story, and if you have any critiscism. :D