Christmas 1998

Lyra was at Grimmauld Place with Sirius. Their first Christmas they had ever shared without the threat of Voldemort. They had had a small party the night before with Remus, Dora, and their son Teddy, who had Sirius and Lyra as godparents. Dora's mother Andromeda had also joined them, having lost Ted before they had a chance to be reunited. Lyra's boyfriend Charlie had stayed for the evening, before returning home to the Burrow.

So now, Sirius was awake, waiting for Lyra to wake as well. Eventually, he got slightly fed up and padded across the hall to her bedroom, before pulling back her bedcovers so she was exposed to the cold.

He had, however, forgotten how like Mad Eye she had become since the war ended, and while her first reaction was to shriek, she simultaneously pulled out her wand from where she kept it on her bedside table and had it trained on his face in seconds.

He froze, waiting for her to wake up properly. When she blearily opened her eyes and noticed it was him, she glared at him, then promptly let her head fall back to the pillow, shutting her eyes and trying to get back to the pleasant dream she had had.

"Lyra!" Sirius moaned, "come on its Christmas Day!"

Lyra's only response was grope for the duvet with her eyes closed, eventually succeeding in pulling it back to cover her.

It was at this point that having heard the shriek, Dora and Remus had leapt out of bed and hurtled upstairs, wands ready to fight.

Instead, they had found Sirius standing in Lyra's bedroom glowering at Lyra who was grumpily rearranging her covers and attempting to block him out.

"Sirius, what's going on?!" Asked Dora, "it's seven o'clock!"

"It's Christmas Day!" He returned, "I wanted to see Lyra.."

"He pulled off my duvet without waking me up" came a mumble from the bed. Remus' eyes softened and he went over to her bed.

"Morning Ly" he said quietly, stroking her hair and allowing her to wake up nicely.

"Morning Uncle Remus" she replied, before rolling over to see Dora standing next to Sirius. "Morning Dora" "morning Ly".

Eventually Sirius couldn't help himself. "Ly, come on! It's Christmas Day you have to wake up now!"

"If you'd just let me wake up naturally rather than pulling the duvet off my bed and nearly giving me a heart attack them maybe I would!"

Sirius, Remus and Dora all looked sad at the reminder of Lyra's loss of innocence, of her battle hardened personality. She had seen death, had fought bravely, had died in that forest. She had travelled for a year, not knowing who lived and who died. She had saved the lives of many people, yet had lost some too.

She had witnessed the death of Draco Malfoy, and of Snape. The death of Lavendar Brown. She had seen Colin Creevey's dead body and protected it from flying curses while her friends moved him to safety. She had seen the rockfall that crushed Fred, causing him to be rushed to St Mungo's in a coma. He had been in hospital for months and Lyra had been Charlie's support through that. She had been the sole witness to Bellatrix's curse to Dora. Teddy could only ever be an only child.

She had seen Sirius for the first time in almost a year, and had seen him fall at Dolohov's hand. She hadn't known until later that he had survived.

Nobody had made it through the war completely unscathed, and Lyra was a testament to that. Sirius instantly felt guilty at all she had seen, all he had failed to protect her from. He quickly joined her on the bed and gathered her in his arms. "I'm sorry Ly, I didn't mean to scare you.." "It's alright Sirius." Sighing, she slowly pulled herself upright and got out of bed.

After the initial, horrific start to the day, it only improved. They had had a wonderful day, made even better by Charlie's short visit with a bunch of mistletoe. He had arrived just in time to see Teddy crawl to Lyra for the first time. Lyra kissed and praised him, swinging him about in the air until he couldn't stop giggling and his hair cycled through colours so fast that even Dora got dizzy.

Eventually, when it came to the evening, Lyra helped them tuck Teddy in bed, before kissing him goodnight and returning to Sirius downstairs. He was sitting on the sofa and she joined him, wriggling under his arm and resting her head on his shoulder. "What are you thinking about Sirius?" He was so silent that Lyra thought he had gone to sleep. "Sirius?"

His eyes came back to the present, and when he turned to look at her she could see the shining of unshed tears. Lyra started to get worried, "Sirius?"

"I'm sorry Ly" he said in a hoarse voice

"About this morning? There's nothing to be sorry about.."

"No, about last year. I'm sorry I worried you, I'm sorry I couldn't protect you Ly. I'm sorry you saw me fall. I can't believe you went through the year alone" he ended in a whisper, a lone tear trickling down his cheek. Lyra stared at him, aghast. "Sirius! I wasn't alone! I had Hermione and Ron. As for protecting me, I can hold my own! And Sirius?" He turned away from the flickering flames once more to look at her. "I'm still here, I'm still alive, and so are you, and the Weasleys, and Charlie, and Remus and Dora.. Were still here, you can't regret last year Sirius, we won! Were safe!" "Only down to you, only down to the fact that you willingly let him kill you! Imagine if you actually had died Ly! I wasn't able to protect you!" "Then I would have been with Mum and Dad. But I didn't Sirius, I chose to come back, and I'm still here, I'm still your Ly."

Sirius turned back to the flames, "yeah, Ly, you are. You'll always be my Ly. I love you Lyra, Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas Sirius. I love you."

As the flames slowly died down, they remained on the sofa, not willing to let each other leave. Christmas 1998 was over, the war was won, and against all the odds, their little family was still together.


A/N just to say, I am regretting what I did to Tonks. :'( but I couldn't think of anything else to do to her that would damage her that couldn't be fixed.

To make myself feel better, there is a small chance of being fixed - not now, but maybe in a few years a witch will discover the cure. Who knows?