April, 1997
He has spent the majority of his life in the moments between action.
He is not even forty yet; young for a wizard. He lived to fight two wars. He has lived through the deaths of his closest friends, his mentor, and his enemies.
He has lived long enough to see Lilly and James's son grow up to be a fine young man.
He has lived a life punctuated with monthly terrors and prejudice. He has lived to see hate directed at him. And he has lived long enough to lose all hope, and to regain it in the end.
These are the events that have defined his life, shaped his world view, and made him who he is.
But if you combined all of these things, they actually took up a very small fraction of his life. The majority of his life was spent waiting. Most of the days in his life have been quiet, lonely, even a bit dull.
Now between his wife and son, there never seems to be a moment of silence.
Once again, his life is bursting with noise. Laughter, and lullabies. Cries of joy and of sorrow. Tonks sweet voice singing to his son. His own raspy voice reading to him quietly in the early morning. The almost daily crash of Tonks breaking one thing or another with her endearing clumsiness.
He soaks it all in with a happy sigh.