A/N: Last chapter! I think what I really wanted to highlight here was that there is life beyond loss, that time does heal all wounds and that you can move on and be happy even if you lose someone you really loved, you might always miss them but that doesn't stop you from living a full life. Life's too long.
The Ilvermorny information came from Pottermore and the HP Lexicon. I tried to incorporate little Easter Eggs wherever I could.
If you made it till the end, I would appreciate if you leave a review :)
-xxxx-
Moving to a new country was… strange. She had requested Headmaster Fontaine to not reveal to her new classmates that she had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, not wanting to be inundated with questions. An infrequent student exchange programme had existed between Ilvermorny and other schools: notably Beauxbatons, but also a few students from Castelobruxo and apparently Hogwarts (though that was before Demelza's time); so, the arrival of a new student wouldn't – shouldn't – raise any eyebrows.
She had the choice between Wampus and Thunderbird for a House, having been selected by both, and picked Thunderbird because she never wanted to be a warrior, ever again. Besides, she liked flying, and especially after everything, being in the air was the only thing that made sense, so she figured her spirit animal was probably a bird or something, even though that wasn't how it worked, she knew, but Thunderbird felt right regardless. She joined the Quidditch team, the best Chaser of the lot there, topped the class during DADA (though she was middling of the pack at best in her other classes), had a pleasant enough acquaintanceship with her dormmates and classmates, and spent the first six weeks at Ilvermorny having nightmares every night until she finally broke down and went to the Healer on Duty, Healer Stone, and asked him for something to help her sleep. He put her on a carefully regimented dosage of Dreamless Sleep and also suggested a Mind Healer, which she refused.
The first time she laughed after took her by surprise. It was a small thing, three months after she got there, just a silly joke made by a fellow Thunderbird, Joel Tanner. A snort of laughter left her mouth and she was instantly thrown back to Colin, who would always make jokes like that, and a thought in her mind going 'you don't deserve to laugh when he can't do that anymore' made the laugh die on her lips and suddenly she was leaving the dining hall as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, blindly heading for the Snakewood tree on the grounds. She liked the tree. It was peaceful under that canopy of leaves, it calmed her mind now that Colin was no longer there to do that for her. Her heart ached even more at that thought. She needed him.
She was so intent on getting to the tree, to collapsing under its comforting arms, she didn't notice Joel getting up to follow her. He approached her, slowly, putting a tanned brown hand on her pale forearm as she cried, silently, shoulders shaking with the effort of keeping the noise down.
"Are you okay, Demelza?" he asked concernedly, "I didn't say anything to offend you, did I?"
She started, not realising someone was there.
"No, no; it's fine Joel, I'm sorry. Nothing to do with you. I just… miss home." She said, weakly trying to smile.
"I'll leave you alone, if that's what you want, but if you want to talk about it… it might help. Share your sorrows and all that."
And suddenly, she found herself speaking, desperate for anything that could help ease the crushing sensation in her chest. "You know about the war back in Britain, right? I'm sure you must've heard… well, I – my boyfriend died. During the final battle. I was there. I couldn't do anything." It was abrupt, and it was designed to shock.
"Oh man, I'm really sorry, Demelza, I don't know what to say." He looked horrified and taken aback, and she had never felt the divide between herself and an ordinary teenager more acutely than in that moment. "But… if you want to talk about it anyway, I can listen."
Surprisingly enough, she did. She spoke about Colin, and how he'd been her best friend and then her boyfriend, how she'd been so sure they were going to get married and how she didn't know how to handle herself after he was gone. Joel introduced her to his girlfriend Amanda the next day, and Amanda was great friends with Talia Andrews, who was actually a roommate of Demelza's, and suddenly Demelza had friends.
Joel and Amanda were the ones who pushed her into considering the Mind Healer again. She resisted the idea initially, but after a particularly bad week, gave in. How bad could it be?
As it transpired, very bad indeed. The Mind Healer, a warm young woman by the name of Healer Smith – Bethany - was very pleasant indeed, but actually putting Colin into words to someone who didn't know him was… incredibly difficult. Bethany was a great listener – part of the job description, she supposed – but Demelza wasn't a great talker, so progress was uphill, especially since at first, she didn't want to acknowledge her trauma. She just wanted sleep, and she didn't want to hurt anymore, but not at the expense of forgetting Colin.
After a few weeks of stalling though, she figured she had to try to open up, and someone who was magically bound to not talk about her shit to other people was probably the best one. Joel, Amanda and Talia were great, but they didn't, couldn't understand. So, slowly, haltingly, she tried, and learned there were words and terms to describe what she was feeling, like PTSD and survivor's guilt. Bethany also suggested that she keep a journal, and Demelza agreed on the condition that once her head was on straight, she was tossing that thing into a fire.
Writing out her feelings was a whole different type of hell. She always addressed them as letters to Colin, because, as damaging as it probably was for her emotional health, she'd always found it easier to open up to him than to her own self. But engaging with those feelings was like picking at an injury that had just began to scab over and making it raw and red again. She felt like one giant gaping weeping wound, and probably had most of the people around her terrified for her mental health that first year – often prone to panic attacks, lack of sleep, nightmares, and days of utter hopelessness and fits of crying. The news that she'd lost her boyfriend in the 1998 battle made its rounds around the school, but luckily her friends ensured the fact that she'd fought in the battle didn't, and so people mostly left her alone; and her three friends learned to ask her what she needed to feel supported and banded together to give that to her, and finally Demelza began feeling a bit more at home, despite the giant Colin-sized hole in her heart.
-xxxx-
In her last year at Ilvermorny she was scouted by the Finchburg Finches, a Massachusetts team, and joined them as a Chaser reserve upon graduating, and realised with a sort of bittersweet smile that she'd actually achieved that faraway dream she'd had, of being a Quidditch player, even though her other half hadn't had the chance to become a famous photographer. She still thought of Colin as her other half, despite having had two short ill-fated relationships in her Ilvermorny career, one with a Brazilian exchange student named Eduardo which had lasted three months and one with a New Yorker called Ian who was two years her junior (though as she'd only gone on four dates with Ian, total, calling it a relationship was generous in the extreme).
At least she could think of Colin and smile, albeit wistfully, instead of feeling like she'd stabbed herself in the throat.
She kept in infrequent touch with Ginny over the years, and in even more infrequent touch with Dennis. She felt like an awful person, she had been close to Dennis too, but it was just too hard. He was just too similar to Colin. Ginny had joined the Holyhead Harpies as a Chaser reserve as well, so they had a bit more to talk about that wasn't emotionally charged, but they were both getting busier and more distant as time went on. It was just the way things went, Demelza supposed. The only person she really corresponded with from back home, excepting her family, was Luna Lovegood of all people. She'd met Luna again in her first year at the Finches – she'd joined a Magizoology expedition led by Newt Scamander, and they'd been hot on the trail of some creature or the other in Peru while she'd been playing an exhibition match at a small stadium outside Lima. They'd run into each other at a small pisco bar where the teams were doing a post-match celebration and the Magizoologists were apparently unwinding after a long day. Luna was an interesting combination of blunt and whimsical, and she had a refreshing perspective on things. She'd helped her deal with Colin's death in ways even her Mind Healer couldn't. She received an invite for Ginny's wedding to Harry a couple years into her Finches career but didn't attend. She wasn't ready to go see the Hogwarts lot again, her trips back home thus far had been limited to her childhood home only and she'd been careful not to let anyone know that she'd been back in the country.
That first year with the Finches was… good for her. The increased exercise load helped, the sheer physicality of her job keeping her too exhausted to be sleep-deprived and the endorphins keeping her from being too sad. She still hadn't kicked the habit of talking out loud to Colin occasionally, though she was careful not to do it in front of other people. She also still wrote Colin letters, though over time they moved from miserable to resigned to just… newsy. She still signed them 'I love you', because that hadn't changed, and she wasn't going to stop until she found someone else to love, which she was fairly sure was never going to happen. She also started hooking up with the team Keeper, a bloke named Thomas Henderson, who was big and burly and looked absolutely nothing like Colin but still, had a nice smile and made her laugh and was totally fine with the fact that she wasn't emotionally invested (and had no plans of changing that, either). Talia squealed when she'd heard – she was a huge fan of Henderson and his biceps. She stayed a reserve for three years, occasionally playing more and more matches as a starting chaser in exhibition matches and the like, and three years in made the starting line-up, one of the proudest moments of her life. Best of all, the only Colin related sad thought she had surrounding her promotion was I wish he was here to see this, and zero actual tears, and Demelza thought she might actually be able to somehow manage the next fifty-odd years without Colin now.
The thing with Thomas was still going on, they'd fallen into a relationship, she supposed, and he asked her at some point if she had ever thought about going back to Britain, seeing if she could get traded onto a team there. Her lightning quick sharp refusal surprised even her – she thought she was doing better, but apparently not enough. He seemed taken aback, and that's when she realised Thomas had no idea about the Battle and Colin and any of that stuff – she'd been so used to having her friends know she'd forgotten people outside of the Ilvermorny circuit definitely didn't. So she told him she had some really bad memories of Britain, touched on the whole disaster of 1998 bit, and told him moving to Britain was out of the question. That's when he revealed he was being traded to the Ballycastle Bats and was leaving the US, and she realised that she didn't feel anything at the thought of losing him. They broke up then, no hard feelings, and remained in indifferent contact for a few years after. She was not moving back to Britain, and definitely not for a boy.
Although, it transpired that she eventually would move back to Britain, but for a girl instead.
-xxxx-
A year after the Thomas split, she met David, at her Mind Healer's clinic of all places. She bumped into him on the way out and they got to talking briefly, and then kept talking when he asked her to get a coffee with him at the hospital cafeteria. He was a newly qualified Healer at the same hospital, doing a specialisation in Spell-Damage, a few years older than her, with straight mousy brown hair and hazel eyes and a smile that was as full and bright as Colin's had been, and they became casual friends. He also had a wedding band on his finger, so she assumed he was married, but a few months of intermittent conversation later she discovered he had been but no longer was, and that's when it felt so easy, so natural to talk about Colin. Here was someone who understood.
She told him about Colin, about what it was like to lose your childhood sweetheart and best friend to an unnatural death, how she'd literally run away to another continent to get away from the memories of him because she'd defined herself as Colin-and-Demelza for so long. He told her about Jeannie, how they'd met at a café when he'd been in his first year of training and she had been pursuing a law certification at MACUSA. They'd been casual friends for a couple years, dated for one, married for another, and then she'd caught Dragon Pox and died. They spoke about living on after, how guilty they felt when they were angry at the others who moved on while their lives just ended, how memories of loves lost made life unbearable but to not have those memories would be even worse. There was no need to pretend, no need to hide. He was good for her, calming her through camaraderie where Colin had done so with chatter – two routes to the very same destination. And when one night David leaned over and pressed his lips to hers, she felt a spark she hadn't felt in years. There was nothing like kissing someone who made the noise in her head quieten, nothing like kissing someone who understood.
They started dating soon after, and though Demelza still felt guilty every time she referred to David as her boyfriend, she wasn't guilty enough to stop. She knew, objectively, that there was nothing wrong in moving on, that Colin was too generous a person to deprive her of all people of companionship and light and laughter, but she felt guilty anyway; no matter what Joel and Amanda (now a few years into Mind Healer training herself) told her. But David was sweet, and battling some of the same struggles, so her skittishness and back-and-forth didn't put him off the way it might've done with someone else without that shared experience. After all, it had taken him three months after kissing her that first time to take his wedding ring off.
That didn't stop her from having a panic attack the first time he told her he loved her. But when he sat there, soothing her, helping her count her breaths and ground herself with things she could see and smell and touch; that's when she realised maybe she could love someone else too. That perhaps Colin didn't need to be the only one.
She still wrote him letters, but they were few and far apart now.
The last letter she wrote Colin was a few years into her relationship with David, when her live-in boyfriend got down on one knee while she was cooking pasta on a Tuesday in her pyjamas, marinara sauce smeared on one cheek, and asked her if she wanted to go by Robins-Miller instead of just Robins from now on, a simple solitaire ring in hand, three days before they were scheduled to make a trip back to England to meet Demelza's family. She laughingly said yes, and they celebrated the night long, but in the morning David had an early shift and Demelza had the day off from practice, and so, without planning or thinking or even feeling sad about it she wrote her final letter to Colin. She told him about David's proposal, about how strange it felt even ten years later to have this realisation that she was going to spend the rest of her life with a man who wasn't Colin, asked him if he was proud of her, told him she was finally going to let him rest, and closed by saying she would always love Colin, he would always be in her heart, but that she'd finally discovered her heart was big enough to love more than just one person. And she signed that letter goodbye, and it felt final.
She fetched all the letters she'd written, pages upon pages of them, all together they made a book. She tied them with ribbon, shrunk them down, and put them in the bag she was taking with her on her trip to England, and on her last day there, before they were scheduled to return, she squeezed David's hand and told him she was going to go pay a visit, and after a searching look into her eyes, he squeezed back, kissed her on the forehead and told her to take her time.
That was the first day she'd been back at his grave since the funeral, and she was unprepared for how much it made her hurt, an echo of the pain the way it had been in the early days, not dulled in the way she'd carried around every single day since. She said her goodbyes, eyes streaming, pressing her lips to her hand and touching the headstone, and left the letters there, charmed to be unnoticeable to others, tied together with a rose.
They Portkeyed back to Boston, where they now lived, and promptly eloped the next day. She sent letters to her family and Luna and Ginny to let them know; and threw a party for her teammates and Ilvermorny friends and David's colleagues and friends the following weekend – and endured many rounds of ribbing since no one actually knew David had popped the question. And she was happy, really truly happy after a really long time. So happy in fact, that when their friends left, they decided to have a private celebration of their own, and because her life was just a collection of cliches, a month later Demelza realised she was pregnant.
-xxxx-
She officially retired from playing, offering to stay on as a mentor/coach/scout until she got too big to fly. Ginny had gone back to playing after birthing her first child, only retiring after the second, but Demelza didn't think she would, that itch had been scratched for her and she was looking forward to doing something else. Being pregnant wasn't as bad as she had feared – she was anxious, given the fact that her own mother had passed bringing her into the world, but her pregnancy was textbook. David hovered, naturally, but she wasn't afraid of death the way she had been as a teenager, though she obviously wasn't going to go out there looking for danger. She had dreams of Britain though, the whole time she was pregnant, and when she was six months along she had the most vivid dream she'd ever had of a daughter who looked like her with David's beautiful hazel-green eyes, laughing and flying over the pitch at Hogwarts, and she asked David if he would ever consider moving to Britain.
And he shrugged, and he said, "why not?" They could always move back, or even move further east eventually (perhaps to New Zealand or someplace) – after thirty years in one country he was ready to experience a new one. Besides, portkeys and apparition still existed. And so David applied for a position at St. Mungo's, to begin a year later, figuring this would give them six months after the birth of their child to have to contend with a move. She wrote Ginny and Luna and her father to let them know; and nestled in Ginny's reply was a throwaway sentence about Dennis, now an Auror, getting married and George being a groomsman, so she decided to reach out to Dennis as well. She wrote to him, congratulating him on his wedding, letting him know that she was pregnant and moving back to England. His reply was equally warm and filled with congratulations, but they felt like strangers now to each other, and while it felt like the end of an era and it hurt her a little, dissolving this last real link to Colin, Demelza realised she was actually pretty… okay. It was fine.
In January, her daughter was born, a daughter with inky black hair like hers, and hazel eyes like David's. She wasn't sure if they were going to go with the half-formed idea in her head, but when she saw David's eyes, shining with tears of joy and a little sorrow, she put the idea to him, and he agreed. And so, Elsa Jeannie Robins-Miller came into this world as a very late Christmas present for her parents.
They moved back to England, to a small cottage in the country but in the midst of a village instead of on the fringes, and Demelza opened a Flying School for young children once Elsa was old enough to be left with her grandparents for a few hours. Ginny's children came by for lessons, as did Luna's, and so did the kids of some of her Hogwarts classmates; and her heart was full. And when Elsa got her Hogwarts letter and she went to Diagon Alley with her to get her supplies, it didn't hurt, didn't throw her into memories of her own schooldays. She helped Elsa pick out and name her owl (Artemis), stopped her from buying too many Skiving Snackboxes, whooped and cheered when she took out three windows in Ollivander's shop with a single wave of her wand and then put them back to rights with a startled second wave; and put her on the Express with only a small ache in her heart at being parted from her daughter for the very first time.
-xxxx-
The years went on much as they had, but the domesticity was comforting. After the first time it usually became David's job to do the Kings Cross run – most parents with young children preferred to leave them under her care when they went to the station to pick up or drop off their older kids, and so her classes were usually in full swing at that time. It was in Elsa's fifth year that she got a letter from her daughter asking her to please come to the station. Dear Mum, it began, and went on to tell her that she wanted to introduce her parents to her fourth-year boyfriend, the first one serious enough to warrant a meet-the-parents. She was invited over to his place for dinner that night, but she wanted them to meet him first, before inviting him over the next night to theirs, and then perhaps doing a dinner with both sets of parents at some point that summer.
So Demelza let all her parents know that this year they were going to have to make other arrangements, and set off to Kings Cross with David, who looked a bit spellshocked at the idea of his baby girl being old enough to be in a serious relationship. She was waiting at the platform as the scarlet engine rolled in, and beamed as she saw her pretty, petite daughter, hair pulled back into a messy ponytail held in place with her Ravenclaw tie, coming towards her, and then her eyes fell on the thin figure to her left, and her world spun on its axis.
There were those blonde curls she couldn't forget if her life depended on it, and a bright smile she knew almost as well as she knew her own. She could hear his voice almost before she heard the boy speak, and she was clutching David's hand in a death grip so hard he looked at her, alarmed, before schooling his face into a smile as their daughter approached, grinning ear to ear.
"Mum, dad, this is Colin Creevey, my boyfriend. Colin, these are my parents, David and Demelza." "Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Robins-Miller," he said, and his voice was exactly what she imagined it would be. She felt David start in realisation next to her; and squeezed his hand in warning before opening her mouth to speak. "It's nice to meet you too, Colin," she said, her voice hoarse to her own ears, "Call me Demelza." And she could hear David next to her making his own introductions, but her head was whirling so fast it was a wonder it was still attached to her shoulders. Screw being hit by a Bludger - she felt as though she was being used as a Bludger during Quidditch training. If she squinted it was like a snapshot in her own past, seeing her daughter holding the hand of a boy wearing her dead late boyfriend's face.
Elsa and Colin were still talking, and David, bless him, had taken over the conversation to give her a chance to pull herself together. She had never been so eager for a Firewhiskey in her entire life. Then she heard footsteps coming up to them, and she knew who she was going to see before she even looked up. She tuned back in to hear Colin say, "oh and here are my parents – mum, dad, this is Elsa, my girlfriend, and her parents-" and then there was Dennis, his voice a bit deeper than she remembered, but with the same inflections and quirks, still as clear as ever, eyes wide open with shock, cutting off his son to exclaim, "Demmy?!"
"Hey, Dennis," she said, laughing with more than a little disbelief, and suddenly he was hugging her fiercely, and laughing too. They pulled apart, still smiling, and looked over at their respective kids, who looked utterly confused. Dennis too looked as though he'd been hit with a Confundus charm when he realised his son was dating Demelza's daughter, but he seemed to realise that Platform 9¾ was not the place for such revelations. They quickly made the introductions: Dennis was standing next to a sweet blonde and blue-eyed woman, Leslie; and Demelza embraced her as well, and then Dennis and David shook hands; and then Dennis invited the two of them for dinner along with Elsa. They walked out to where the Creeveys had parked their car, it transpired that Dennis lived just a couple hours out of London. She had a whispered conversation with David on their way out, and it seemed Dennis was doing the same with Leslie; because when they got to the car Dennis brought the kids up to speed quickly, saying, "Demmy and I grew up together, kids, but she went to Ilvermorny for her NEWTs and we lost touch over the years. So your mum is going to drive you two and David back to ours, and I'll side-Apparate Demmy since six of us can't fit anyway, and it'll give us two a chance to catch up and get the nostalgia bits out of the way before you all get back and we can have dinner together. What say?"
-xxxx-
"It is so good to see you, Demmy," said Dennis, as they sat in the little garden behind the Creeveys' cute cottage, beers in hand. "How have you been? What have you been up to?"
"Ah, it's so great to see you too, Dennis," she replied, and found that she really, genuinely meant it. "I'm sorry – I should've kept in touch better. I was a basket case for a while there, it was easier to stay away, you know? But I've been good – retired from American Quidditch when I got pregnant with Elsa and been running a Flying School for little kids ever since. What about you – Ginny told me years ago you became an Auror and I couldn't believe it – little Dennis Creevey, an Auror! Let's hear it, then."
"Yes," he said, chuckling, "Little Dennis Creevey grew up to be an Auror. It's funny really – that's where I met Leslie, she's an Auror too. I don't know if you remember her from Hogwarts, she was a couple years behind me and in Ravenclaw, so you probably wouldn't. But yeah, Auror office, I don't know – after the Battle, it just became the only thing that made sense. Being too young to fight then – I just felt powerless, I guess, didn't want to feel like that anymore. Mum and dad weren't best pleased to say the least – but they understood eventually. And I was on the team that collared Dolohov," and here his face hardened as he mentioned the name of his brother's killer, "which honestly made it all worth it. But also, Demmy, I need to say this – don't apologise for not staying in touch. To be honest, I think it was the right thing for both of us. It was too hard. I couldn't see you without seeing Colin for the longest time and I think it was the same for you, wasn't it? And I'm not blameless either – so if you persist in saying you're sorry, I'm going to have to do the same. I'm sorry, Demmy. And hey, I guess we have our kids to thank for getting us back in touch, don't we? How are you doing with this, by the way?"
"God, Dennis, I'm not going to lie, that was an out-of-body experience for me, seeing your Colin for the first time. I can't exactly blame Elsa for not giving me a warning seeing as she didn't know that I'd need one, but it was surreal."
"Total Twilight Zone, I agree," he said, clarifying, "It's a Muggle thing," upon seeing the puzzlement on her face. "Elsa looks so much like you did as a teenager, Demmy, I nearly had a heart attack when I saw her as well!"
There's a comfortable silence as the two old friends sit together, shoulder to shoulder, and the missing link between them feels less painful than it has in years. "I miss him," she says softly, wistfully, "I still do, though it doesn't hurt the way it used to. I'm happy in my life though, Dennis, and sometimes it feels unfair to say that. But I know he wouldn't have wanted anything else for me, and if I hadn't taken a chance on David, I wouldn't have Elsa, would I?"
"I think he'd have been happy Demmy, and so proud to see where you've come. I miss him too, I'll always miss him, but we'll see each other again someday, all three of us. Now, let's go get a head start on the chicken – I think Leslie'll appreciate not having to cook when she gets home with the kids, you won't believe the appetite on Colin. I swear, kids these days… we never drove mum and dad spare the way he does with the eating, I'm sure of it."
-xxxx-
They have a lovely dinner together, passing around the roasted chickens that Dennis and Demelza put together along with the oven veg, and Leslie produced a cherry pie a la mode she apparently had made in the morning. Demelza spends the first half of the conversation trying to find the similarities between this Colin and her Colin, but slowly realises they're not that similar after all, other than freakishly so in appearance. That thought comforts her a bit. Colin's his own person, just like Col was. She never wants to make the mistake her own father had made with her, unable to look past the face of a woman he had loved and lost to the girl within.
They do dinner, and then dessert, and then coffee, since Leslie was apparently an espresso fiend, and then say their goodbyes, with plans to do this again the next day at the Robins-Millers', and Floo home, the three of them.
They land in their living room, and Elsa turns her hazel eyes on her mother and asks, "what was that?" and Demelza realises it's time for a long overdue conversation. David says his goodnights, and backs out of the room quietly, and Demelza sits her daughter down and waits for her to ask her questions.
"What's going on, mum? I saw your expression when you saw Colin, you looked like you'd seen a ghost – though I guess if you knew his dad, you probably knew his uncle as well right? He told me he was named after an uncle who died during the War – is that why the face? You didn't date Colin's dad, right mum? Oh, please tell me you didn't date his dad, that's going to be super weird." Elsa finishes with a half revolted expression on her face.
Demelza can't help it – she laughs. "Don't worry, I most definitely never dated Dennis. He was like a little brother to me. But, as you may have guessed, I was… very close to his brother, Colin – I'm going to call him Col to distinguish him from your Colin else this conversation is going to get messy to understand – and seeing Colin was honestly like seeing a ghost. He looks very much like his uncle used to at his age." A flash of pain crossed her face. It was never going to be easy to think of Col as a teenager, even after all these years.
"I dated Col for a very long time in school, and we were best friends almost from the moment I got to Hogwarts. It was quite a serious relationship, Elsa, my first serious relationship, we were planning on getting married. We fought during the Final Battle, though we were both underage, and that was where he lost his life. I'm not going to pretend and say it wasn't difficult, because it was. You know I met your dad in the US, I was there because I'd finished my schooling – my NEWTs – at Ilvermorny, mostly to get away from Hogwarts, and I stayed on in America to play for the Finches. I'd loved Col very much, and it was very hard for a few years, and Dennis and I lost touch during our individual grieving processes. Your dad and I, though – I don't want you to get the impression that I'm not happy with my life now, and with him, Elsa. You know your dad was widowed before we met, it was easier for him to talk about Jeannie than it was for me to talk about Col, which is why you never heard me talk about him beyond a vague mention of 'losing close friends and a boyfriend during the Battle'. But, I can answer whatever questions you have if you want."
The very first question Elsa asks her is if she's okay with her dating Colin. Demelza looks at her appraisingly, and asks, "If I said I wasn't, would that change anything?" the answering flush is enough response, and she raises a hand before Elsa can speak. "For the record, I'm absolutely fine with it, Elsa, as long as the two of you are okay with the enormous coincidence – I'm sure Dennis is filling him in, as well. He seems to be a very sweet and charming boy, and I know his family is delightful, and if he plans to follow in his parents' footsteps to become an Auror I can't see how either your dad or I can have concerns regarding job security and financial position, the usual boring parent questions. Also, he's not his uncle, Elsa, and you don't have to be worried about whether seeing him will make me sad for a life I didn't have. It's been a very, very long time, and in that life, I wouldn't have had you, so... I'm fine with it, and I'm very happy for you, both of you."
"I love him," she whispers in response, and Demelza folds her into a hug, a bittersweet smile on her face.
-xxxx-
The next day Demelza wakes up early and visits a graveside she hasn't been to in over a decade. She wants to be back before her students show for their lessons and before Elsa wakes up and is subsequently deputised into buying groceries and prepping for their dinner guests.
She kneels next to the headstone, now wearing a bit with age, and places a customary rose at the base, remembering with a sudden flash how much Colin had unashamedly liked flowers.
"Hi Col, it's me again. I'm fairly sure if you're watching from up there you already know what I'm here to say. I don't know if I should apologise for not showing up in the last sixteen-odd years, but I think you'd understand, like you always did where I was concerned, so I'm not going to try. I wonder if I've changed so much that it would no longer be easy for you to get me, or would you always know me no matter how much I changed? But yeah, I digress. I met Dennis after so long because our kids are dating, full circle, eh? Another Elsa and Colin running around here… he looks so much like you Col, I thought you were back for a second but I'm glad I can look past that to see him, it wouldn't be fair to him or Elsa, otherwise."
She stands, brushing the soil from her knees. "It's already shaping up to be a sunny day, Col, and I wish you were here to take pictures of the trees and the flowers and the birds, singing. I miss you still, and I love you lots, but I'm happy in my life and I'm happy for Elsa that she has a Colin of her own. Are you happy, Col? I hope you are. I can feel you right now, closer than I have in ages. It makes me feel warm. I love you, Col. Au Revoir…"
She kisses her fingertips and brushes the stone, strangely warm under her touch, turning to go.
Somewhere, somehow, she feels him smiling.
-Fini-