Epilogue

Eighteen years later, a much older Sirius Black sat at the dining room table of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, with the Weasley family. The cheerful chatter had broken out across the table at the news of Arthur's survival of the snake attack, and Sirius was almost compelled to join in.

Where was Harry? He'd gone to get some water from the kitchen, but that had been nearly three minutes ago.

Almost precisely at that moment, Harry came in, carrying something that definitely wasn't a glass of water. It looked like…a box? A picture frame?

"Sirius," he said, his voice silencing everyone else's, "is this my mum and dad?"

Hermione and Ron stared from Harry to Sirius. Sirius stood, walked briskly to Harry and looked at the picture. There they were, the five of them, him and James and Remus, and Lily and…Ally…

There they were, laughing and smiling, their faces muddy and tired, their hair tangled beyond belief, but Sirius thought that they had never looked better.

Pettigrew hadn't been in the picture, since he'd been taking it. But where had Harry gotten this? He thought he'd burned it.

"I just sort of found it," Harry explained defensively, incorrectly reading Sirius's face as anger. "It was all smashed and hidden in the cupboard. If you want me to put it back—"

Sirius laughed. The entire table stared at him. "No, it's fine, Harry. Merlin, I thought I'd destroyed this thing…"

Molly looked at it. "Oh, my…Sirius, is this the day you and the others got out of the Forbidden Forest?"

Harry stared at him. "You were in the Forbidden Forest?"

Ron craned his neck to look at the picture. "Hey, who's the girl?" he asked.

"Harry's mum!" said Hermione in exasperation.

"No…the other one…"

Molly looked at Sirius. "After all this time, you kept this?"

Sirius almost laughed again. "That girl is Ally Godrey. She was a sixth-year Gryffindor when your mum was a seventh-year, Harry. Lily dragged Ally everywhere. They were best of friends. Lily wanted Ally to be the Maid of Honor at her and James's wedding…"

"My mum had a best friend?" said Harry excitedly. "Can I meet her?"

"You could, but it wouldn't do you any good," said Sirius shortly. "She's dead."

"Dead?" said Hermione.

Arthur shook his head. "She was such a promising witch," he said sadly. "She probably would've bested Madame Pomphrey with her healing skills had she lived."

Sirius stared at the picture. "We took this when we got out of the Forbidden Forest. We'd been stuck there for over a week, you know, and we were all a bit insane at that point. Of course, we were all a bit insane to begin with. After our endeavors, they put up enchantments so that no one would get stuck like we did again. " He looked at the picture again. "Pettigrew took it, that's why he's not in it. It was the four of us and Lily and Ally."

"What happened to Ally?" asked Hermione quietly. "How—how did she die?"

"At the beginning of her seventh year, she went on her first Hogsmeade trip of the year," said Sirius. "It was bad times then, really bad. I was surprised they let them go at all." He sighed. "I was off deliberating whether I wanted to join the Order or not. Lily and James—they joined together to fight Voldemort—they were engaged at that point—but being in the Order meant I would probably never see Ally, and we barely saw each other at all anyway, with her being in school and me not."

"You two were dating?" said Molly in a surprised tone.

Sirius nodded. "We actually got together in the Forbidden Forest—I'll tell you the story in a minute," he said, seeing the twins open their mouths.

"Anyway, the Death Eaters attacked Hogsmeade. Judging from your expressions, you think it's impossible, but it wasn't back then. Ally was a capable witch. She could've made it out—," he stopped and stared at the picture before continuing, "—but she ran into three little third-year girls, terrified out of their minds. One of them had an awful cut running down her arm—she was muggleborn, while the other two were half-blood. Ally stayed behind to help them, and they escaped. They're still alive today. However, Ally wasn't so lucky. Ally was pureblood, but she had been adopted into a muggle family, so they treated her like one. And they killed her." He stopped and stared at his horrified audience (excluding Arthur and Molly, who already knew the story), and said, "but those three little third year girls are part of the Order now. One of them is Hestia Jones."

"I'm sorry, Sirius," said Ron.

"Don't worry about it," said Sirius. "Here, I'll tell you the story of the Forbidden Forest. The beginning and the middle are a lot funnier than the end."

The twins looked interested, as did Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Even Ginny put down her book she'd been reading and listened.

"It all started on the night of a full moon, when Lily dragged a very disgruntled Ally out of bed at three in the morning and tried to catch the four of us red-handed…"

A/N: Yeah.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

Ah, my first completed story. Now all I have to do is get back to my Nicci Lonsen story before somebody tries to kill me through a computer.

I have learned that I'm much better at writing OC's because then I get to add snarky comments with going OOC, but my next story WILL contain all regular characters, if I have to kill myself doing it.

Have I written a disclaimer? Probably have, but I'm too lazy to go and check.

DISCLAIMER: If I owned Harry Potter, it would be intimately involved with either A) Hogwarts Founders or B) Greek Gods. So, do I own Harry Potter?

Actually, B isn't really a choice.

Shhh.