A/N I apologize for the delay. I've been reading everything that isn't Harry Potterand it kept distracting me from working on this story. But I'm still here and I still don't own the material. I'm just playing in JKR's sandbox.

Amelia was back in the mist. But now she and Sirius weren't alone. The not-ghosts from their brief sojourn in the Forbidden Forest had joined them in the bright greyness.

Sirius had returned to his normal age, but he was pale and stiff as he looked upon his best friend. "James – I – I am so sorry – "

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," James assured him. "Not about my death anyway. I'm sure you should be sorry for a lot of the pranks we pulled, but my death isn't on you, Padfoot."

"But it is – I – "

"You did what you thought would protect us," Lily said gently, but firmly. "It is not your fault the tool you suggested was flawed. You didn't know it was a flawed instrument; if you had, you wouldn't have told us to use him instead."

Sirius faltered. "But – I – "

"You made a mistake," Remus told him. "We all did. Even I trusted Peter. And then for twelve years I believed you were a traitor. We all make errors in judgment. You aren't alone in that."

"I told you," Amelia said. "I tried to tell you, all those years ago in Azkaban. It wasn't your fault."

James grinned. "That's a stunt ever I would never have dreamed up, Zeraff. The only person to ever sneak into Azkaban. And you, Sirius, the only person to ever break out."

"Ah," Lily interrupted. "Correction, Barty Crouch Jr. broke out."

"Nope," James corrected his wife. "Crouch was sprung. Sirius got out all on his own."

"On his own?" Lily repeated with raised eyebrows. "He would not have continued breathing on his own. Amelia is the only reason he didn't die in there. Without her, he could never have broken out."

"Semantics," James dismissed with an airy wave of his hand. Lily jabbed her elbow into her husband's side.

As Amelia felt her lips stretching into a smile, she noticed what lay beyond her friends. A path through the mist, not quite grey, more of a shimmering, pearly color.

"You see it?" Tonks asked.

"What is it?" Amelia replied.

"What do you think it is?" came the response.

"I don't know."

Tonks shifted her weight to one side. "Don't you?"

Amelia looked back to the pearly trail. A gasp escaped her mouth. It couldn't be –

"It is," Lily said.

"Is what?" Sirius asked.

"It's what you've been looking for, isn't it?" said James. "The end of the maze?"

Sirius tried to speak but no words came out.

"Or perhaps you were looking for something else, Sirius?" James continued. "Forgiveness, maybe? Redemption?"

Lily smiled, a loving smile, mirror to the one James was wearing. "Those aren't things you ever needed to seek from anyone but yourself."

"I never blamed you, Padfoot," James said. "You've got to stop blaming yourself."

"Why? I ruin everything I touch!" Sirius exclaimed. "Everyone is dead! Even – even Harry," he continued more quietly. "Harry was the closest thing I ever had to a son. I loved him like a son. Or maybe like a nephew. A father should have been more responsible than me." He shrugged. "It doesn't matter, I suppose. I'm the last Black."

"Right," James said, remembering. "Regulus died trying to weaken Moldywart."

"What?"

"The reason he didn't die when his curse backfired was because he had split his soul into pieces, Horcruxes, separate from himself," Lily explained. "Regulus died trying to destroy one of them."

Tonks looked away then. "The same one Dumbledore was trying to destroy the night he died."

"Is Reggie – "

Remus shook his head. "He went on long ago." Sirius looked stricken. "We are only here now because Harry called us back for a time. Peter passed through a couple of months ago. He hesitated to kill Harry and was himself killed as a result."

"I have nothing left," Sirius said despondently.

"Really?" Lily asked with raised brows. She exchanged glances with Tonks. "Are they always this thick?"

Tonks smiled. "It took him nearly a year to get over all of his nonsensical notions and realize I loved him just the way he was," she said, wrapping her arms firmly around her husband's waist. "Yours wasn't much better, or so I've heard."

James grinned unabashedly. Lily elbowed him again, even as he kissed the top of her head.

Sirius looked bewildered. His gaze darted between James and Remus, looking for an explanation. His two friends smiled at him and looked over to Amelia, who felt her cheeks burning. Sirius looked at her, still confused. "Amelia . . . do you what they are talking about?"

"She went after you, Sirius," Remus began. "In all the commotion of that battle in the Department of Mysteries, she tried to save you when you fell, and didn't let go, even when she could have saved herself and avoided all of this."

"You would have died, Sirius," Lily said quietly. "Though you were alive when you passed through the Veil, you fell. There is no way back from here if you fall. It would have been as if you had died. Amelia is the key to all of this. She jumped. She leapt after you – and she tried to Apparate."

Now Amelia was confused. "But that didn't work," she protested. "I couldn't Apparate, all I did was almost split my skull with pain."

Lily smiled. "It's incomplete."

Amelia blinked blankly.

Tonks smiled now. "You tripped. You tripped while carrying a floating platter. The platter is still there, hanging in mid-air, waiting for you. And I know that because my mother eventually put levitation charms on all the plates in our house. I lost count of how many times I dropped my dinner onto the floor. Because you freely chose to enter the Veil, you could return. But because you tried to Apparate halfway through, it would be easier – you created your own back door, so to speak."

"You – "

Tonks shook her head. "We are dead. The two of you are in-between and can go either way. You can stay here, with us, and continue on. Or you can go back, to the foibles of daily living and – "

She broke off abruptly, a smile curling at the corners of her mouth even as her eyes began to fill. It was Lily who explained, her tears spilling freely down a proud smile. "He's gone back."

"Who?" Sirius asked in confusion.

"Harry," James answered, also crying over his smile. "Moldywart outsmarted himself and left Harry his own back door, if he so chose. And he did. He was met in-between by Albus, who explained a few of the loose ends. The tale hasn't ended just yet, but it will, very soon." Sirius opened his mouth, but James shook his head. "Even if you left now, nothing you did would change this final confrontation – time moves differently here and you would arrive long after it had ended. The battle is thinning the Veil for the moment, so watch, and then decide."

With that, the two pairs of dead witches and wizards pulled out their wands and traced a large square in the mist. The center of the square twisted and contorted as the grey mist developed color.

Amelia stared in shock at the square as it produced an image of Alice. But no – it was her son, Neville. He had scars on his cheeks as he faced Voldemort in defiance, at the head at a large unruly crowd of what could only be the army attempting to defend Hogwarts. Behind Voldemort were his massed followers and a sobbing Hagrid. At the Dark Lord's feet rested the body of Harry.

"You said he was alive!" Sirius exclaimed.

"He is," James affirmed.

"His eyes, Sirius," Amelia realized. They were open, just a crack, allowing Harry to watch as he played dead.

The scene played out in the square like a large television.

"But you are a pureblood, aren't you, my brave boy," Voldemort asked Neville, who stood facing him, his empty hands curled in fists.

"So what if I am?" Neville demanded.

"You show spirit and bravery, and you come of noble stock. You will make a very valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom."

"I'll join you when hell freezes over! Dumbledore's Army!" he shouted in defiance and the crowd behind him cheered.

"Very well. If that is your choice, Longbottom, we revert to the original plan," Voldemort said in a dangerously smooth voice.

Amelia watched horrified as Voldemort renounced the Sorting Hat, set it upon Neville's head and set it afire. People screamed and everything turned into chaos; the window in the mist expanded to compensate.

Hundreds of people stormed the boundaries of the castle, shouting at the tops of their lungs. An undersized giant came around the castle yelling, "HAGGER!"

"That's Grawp," Remus explained, trying to keep a smile off his face. "He is Hagrid's half-brother. Hagrid's been keeping him in the Forbidden Forest."

Voldemort's giants roared and challenged Grawp. Centaurs charged out of the Forest, their arrows targeting the Death Eaters who broke ranks, shouting in surprise. Harry disappeared beneath his Invisibility Cloak as Neville broke the Body-Bind Curse, drew a rubied-handled sword from the Sorting Hat and beheaded Nagini. Amelia recognized Buckbeak among the thestrals attacking the giants' heads. The wizards and witches, both Hogwarts' defenders and Death Eaters, were being forced back into the castle. Curses flew left and right across the entrance hall into the Great Hall.

The thundering reinforcements looked to be the friends and relatives of the students, along with the inhabitants of Hogsmeade. With some amazement, Amelia recognized her mother, Clarissa Zeraff, her face set in determination, among their number. Sirius stared in amazement at Kreacher, in a crowd of cleaver-wielding house-elves, shouting, "Fight the Dark Lord, in the name of brave Regulus! Fight!" The house-elves attacked the only parts of the Death Eaters they could reach – their legs – and added to the tide crashing down over the hopeless Death Eaters.

George Weasley and Lee Jordan slammed Yaxley to the floor, Dolohov fell before Flitwick, and Hagrid unleashed a dose of long overdue revenge, throwing Walden Macnair across the room into the stone wall. Fenrir Greyback was brought down by Neville and Ron, Albus' brother Aberforth Stunned Rookwood, and Arthur and Percy Weasley overpowered pseudo-Minister Thicknesse. Lucius and his wife Narcissa didn't even attempt to fight, either side, instead running through the crowd screaming for their son.

Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, and a blonde girl –

"Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw girl in Ginny's year," Tonks explained.

"Lovegood?" Amelia repeated. "Like Quibbler Xenophilius Lovegood?"

"His daughter."

– battled Bellatrix Lestrange. A Killing Curse missed Ginny by an inch, eliciting a ferocious roar.

"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" Molly Weasley threw off her cloak and shouted the girls out of her way. She waved off the students who ran forward to help her. "Get back! She is mine!"

Bellatrix taunted Molly, threatening her children, which Amelia recognized immediately as a mistake. If there was one thing you should never, ever do, it was to get between a mother and her children.

"You – will – never – touch – our – children – again!" Molly screamed.

Bellatrix laughed. It was the same laugh that had started this, the same exhilarated laugh Sirius had given just before he toppled backward through the Veil. Now, as then, the curse soared beneath the outstretched arm to squarely hit the chest. Only, this time, the curse was struck to kill and there was no one to come to the rescue. Bellatrix's gloating smile froze and she fell, the watching crowd roared, and Voldemort screamed.

Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Horace Slughorn had all been dueling Voldemort; with the Elder Wand, he was their equal. In his fury at Bella's death, all three were blasted backward. He then turned his fury on Molly Weasley, pointing his wand directing at her.

Harry chose that moment to step in. He roared, "Protego!" Voldemort looked around for the source of the Shield Charm and Harry pulled off his father's Invisibility Cloak.

A cheer immediately erupted from the crowd, but the shouts of "He's alive!" and "Harry!" were cut off immediately. The onlookers were afraid. They knew that this would be the final confrontation.