The Italian night sky was truly beautiful. Harry mused absently as his eyes tracked the bright stars across the sky. The sound of the ocean filled his ears and he felt the soft grains of sand move beneath the blanket he was laying on. He absently noted the constellations, his hand reaching up to the brightest star in the sky.

"Sirius." He murmured. His voice drenched in longing, sadness, happiness and love, coated with the paltry memories of dark houses and of one Christmas, of whispered conversations in fireplaces and skeleton infested hideouts in caves.

"Hmm?" Lia hummed from where she was lying beside him. Her eyes closed as she felt the cool air on her face and the salt in the air.

"That star there," She opened her eyes looking to where Harry was pointing and seeing a star burning brighter than the others, "that star is a part of the Canis Major, my," he swallowed the sudden lump in his throat, "my godfather was named after the brightest star in the sky, Sirius."

Lia turned her head, quietly observing him. His intense stare didn't waver from the stars, absently looking at the other stars in the sky searching for the cluster of bright stars he knew was nearby. "That one," he pointed to the two stars shining bright together, "that one is Regulus, part of the Leo constellation and is known as the heart of the lion. His brother was named after that star. The funny thing about them is they seemed to embody their namesakes perfectly. My godfather was a dog animagus and Regulus had the heart of a Gryffindor." Harry's voice and words contradicted themselves, despite trying to make it light, the words came out heavy and bitter. The more he thought about his godfather and his brother, the more he wanted to rage, and he had taken the initiative to do exactly that at Walburga's portrait before he had moved out. He had taken a vicious amount of pleasure in letting her know that both her kids had betrayed her precious lord, her rebellious first born who she had cast out in disgust and her precious second born, who she had thought was the perfect heir. Both of them had rebelled, had stood up and said no in their own ways. That had actually served to shut her up for a few minutes.

He felt Lia's fingers tangle with his own, as she shifted closer to him until their shoulders bumped together. "You sound like you miss them."

"I didn't know them enough to miss them, I actually didn't meet Regulus at all." His grip on her hand tightened. "I just wish…" He turned to look at her, her amber eyes providing a comfort from the void of hurt and blankness he felt anytime he thought about Sirius.

"They loved each other, yet they never got to tell each other that, and I just, it's just, it's just so sad, that the reason they were torn apart from each other was because of their own family, I mean how screwed up is that?" A lump formed in his throat as the words Andromeda had told him came back to him.

"Sirius often took the punishments meant for Regulus, causing bigger messes so that his parents didn't notice Regulus's screw ups. Reggie always idolised Sirius, wishing he had the courage his name symbolised, he was the one who snuck food and water and whatever healing potions Sirius required whenever he was hurt, unfortunately in the one year he had been away, my dear aunt and uncle had succeeded in turning Regulus's head around, filling it completely with fear and propaganda, it didn't help that after his first year all Sirius could talk about were his new friends, his new brothers in Gryffindor."

"And it's not just them, my parents, Remus, Snape, their whole generation, just lost everything, their lives ended, their stories unfinished." His eyes burned at the unfairness of it all, he didn't even understand why he was thinking of this now. Maybe it was the stars, the unencumbered view of the burning balls of lights, the essences of the souls of the departed that had turned his mind towards the two brightest stars which had fallen too fast, or maybe because of the peace he had felt now, when everything was quite and his mind could stop running, when his soul finally felt at peace. His body and heart had never felt as light as they did when around Lia and maybe that was why his mind and soul had decided to unburden themselves tonight.

"It is screwed up." Lia told him, startling a laugh out of him. Usually when he even said a word about this to Hermione or Ron they had just looked at him with pity and told him it wasn't his fault. But what he was feeling wasn't guilt. It was anger, a burning pit of inferno in his stomach which threatened to consume him, fed by the injustice of it, by the incompetence, the arrogance, the sheer laziness of the adults who would have much rather pushed children into terrible situations because they could not be bothered to deal with it themselves.

"It is screwed up that they are dead but at least who they are lives on." Harry looked at her without speaking, knowing she was going to tell him that they had been good people, great people that he should try to honour them through his life. Her palm came up to rest on his cheek, a gentle warmth against the cool ocean breeze.

"You remember them, you remember who they were, their dreams, their hopes, their mistakes and their regrets, their love before it has been torn away, and in you they will live on, the memory of them will live on." She continued, eyes full of compassion. A lump formed in his throat.

"What if it is not enough?"

"Of course it's not enough! Nothing will ever be enough! But, there is nothing else we can do, all that is left is that, the essence of them which has been left in us, the imprint of their love and dreams and hopes which have branded our souls." He wondered if she was speaking to him or to herself, the words fell too easily, too full of conviction and insurance.

"People who try to console you, will tell you about their triumphs, their successes, or their perfect moments, yet that is not who they are, who they were. People are never perfect, no one is. The greatest boon, the greatest honour you can impart on them is to remember them as they are, warts and all, instead of some crystalised polished version of them."

Harry was enraptured, captured by her voice and her conviction of words. He had been trying to live up to an ideal, he realised, to what he expected his parents had been like, warriors, soldiers, patrons of everything good and just, but they hadn't been that. To what he thought those departed would want him to be, to be what they had sacrificed themselves for.

But, but they hadn't given up everything for him had they? They fought because that's who they were. How presumptuous had he been thinking that they had done all that for him?

They were human, they were real, they had dreams, doubts, hopes, intentions, convictions, longings, they were right and wrong. They weren't painted in strokes of white and gold and everything pure that he had tried to convince himself they were, they were painted in rainbows, of the reds of anger, yellows of joy, they were spotted with the peace of blue, streaked with the malevolence of black, and overlaid with a myriad of other colours.

"Warts and all." He echoed, breathing deeply as he let the words tumbling around them settle fully in his soul.

"Warts and all." Lia confirmed.

They laid that way, enclosed between the stars and the sea, two eternities surrounding them, enclosing them, cocooning them, hiding them away in a bubble of their own. Harry didn't even realise when his eyes began closing, his body being coaxed away into a soft dream full of the people he had lost, and they were people this time, people with their quirks and faults and hopes and dreams, painted in vivid colours of who they had been instead of the pale imitations of who he thought they were.

He remembered his father's arrogance, his mother's impossibly high standards, he remembered Sirius's reckless anger, Remus's insecurity, he remembered Regulus's stubbornness, Snape's bitterness, he remembered Dumbledore's hubris, Tonks's impatience, he remembered Cedric's complacency, Lavender Brown's flightiness, and the hundred other details of the fallen which he had tried to forget because they made him feel guilty to think bad of them.

Speak not ill of the dead.

Yet he hadn't been thinking ill of the dead had he? His mind had just been trying to show him repeatedly how he should remember them, he had just been obtuse about not heeding it's words till now. He let their faults, their quirks, their realness paint the muted shades of their memories he had been trying to keep alive, and all of a sudden instead of a pale imitation, he could see them.

Alive.