To Say Goodbye

The memorial lay on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. It was a peaceful, quiet place, with lots of trees that, this late in August, were starting to turn to brilliant shades of red and gold. Separated from the main Hogsmeade Cemetery by a low fence, it contained a memorial statue, and the graves of those who had died in the Battle of Hogwarts.

The statue itself was fairly modest, nicely understated, though life-size, and made of bronze. It consisted of an average-looking witch and wizard, wands drawn as though ready for battle, beside them, a house-elf, its fists raised. On the other side reared a centaur, hooves flailing, an arrow knocked to his bow. Behind them, the only one based on an existing person, was unmistakably the giant, Grawp. Even a goblin stood beside them, ready to do battle.

For the Battle of Hogwarts had been one of the few times all magical people had fought together.

But the only two people in the graveyard were not really paying attention to the statue. Instead, they had paused at the gates. They were a man and a boy, little more than eleven years of age. The man had short, messy black hair, the fringe obscuring a lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, and glasses covering brilliant green eyes. His hand was on the boy's shoulder, who stood hunched, uncertain whether he wanted to go in or not. He was a handsome child, the only odd thing about him being his brilliant turquoise hair, cut neatly to cheekbone length.

These two were the famous Harry Potter, war hero, and his godson, Teddy Lupin, who was due to start his first at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry within a week.

"Are you ready?" Harry asked quietly. Teddy looked up into his face, his eyes, a matching shade of blue, full of uncertainty. But he nodded, curtly, and his godfather nodded back, and they slowly began walking, in silence, past the statue, past rows of headstones, some simple, some ornate, until they reached a pair, side-by-side, and Harry stopped them. "This is it."

The two headstones were somewhere between the simple and the ornate. Rectangular in shape, with a rounded top, carved with intricate Celtic-style patterns along the edges, around the names.

Remus John "Moony" Lupin. 20 March 1960 - 12 June 1998.

Nymphadora Lupin. 15 April 1971 - 12 June 1998.

The small boy stared at the headstones, tight-lipped.

"I brought you here, when you were a baby. I wanted to show them that... that I'd be there for you, I wanted them to see you." Harry said quietly. Teddy nodded, but didn't look up at him. "Would you like me to leave you alone with them?" Again, the boy nodded, and with one more squeeze of his shoulder, Harry walked away from him.

Only when he was certain that his godfather had left him did Teddy attempt to speak. "Hi Mum. Hi Dad." He was pleased that his voice didn't tremble, even though he thought it might. "It's me." He paused, and bit his lip. Then his hair changed to its natural light brown, and his eyes to grey. He felt his parents would recognise him better if he looked proper. Then he felt silly about it.

Standing here, now, he felt a little bit strange. He had spent the last few days thinking of everything he would have liked to say, everything about his life, how he had lived, how he had wished they were there. But standing here, now, it all seemed to go out of his head. He self-consciously shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat.

"Harry and Gran told me all about you," he found himself saying. "I wish I could have known you, though." He felt tears beginning in his eyes, and he blinked them back, wiping impatiently at them with his sleeve and sniffing. No, he had no reason to cry, he never cried about his parents. He was here because he had something to say, that was all.

"Dad... I know you felt like I'd be ashamed of you... but I'm not. I'm not even a werewolf, I'm a metamorphmagus, like Mum." He smiled, "I'm proud of everything you did... Harry told me how much you loved me, and how you fought for me. And... I wish you were still here, but... I don't hate you for dying. And that goes for you too, Mum." He sniffed again, and blamed the chilly air.

"Mum," he felt his throat constrict, as it often did when he thought of her, "I miss you. Gran says it's silly sometimes. She says I can't really miss you since I was only a few weeks old when you died... but Harry understands. His mum and dad died when he was a baby too, and he says he misses them all the time... Mum... I want you to know that I'm OK. Gran takes good care of me, but she misses you a lot too, but she tries not to show it in front of me." He laughed slightly, then made a face. "She says to tell you that she makes me eat all my vegetables and wash behind my ears."

He trailed off, and stood silently once again. Then, without warning, he sank to the ground, and the tears he had been forcing back began to fall. He sobbed, he wailed, he beat the ground with his fists and railed against a world that would take his parents from him.

And then there were no more tears left, and was left, panting as though he had run a marathon, years of resentment and anger and confusion having poured out onto the soil of his parent's graves, but instead of leaving him feeling empty, he felt whole, as though a plaster had been stuck over a wound. It wasn't completely healed, but the bleeding had stopped.

He stayed like that for a few minutes, just sitting there, tracing the names of his parents with now-dirty fingers, and then got to his feet, slightly shakily, and dusted himself down. He looked up to where Harry was reading the inscription and the names on the memorial statues, giving the boy some privacy. He turned back to his parents, and gave a watery smile. "I love you."

Teddy turned away from the graves, his hair and eyes turning turquoise once again as he did so, scrubbing at his face to try and hide all evidence of his breakdown. It was credit to his godfather that he didn't ask about the boy's red-rimmed eyes and slightly-tear streaked face. Instead, Harry put his arm around his godson's shoulders and began leading him back towards Hogsmeade from where they would Apparate.

He looked back over his shoulder just once, saying a silent goodbye to his friends, hoping they felt he'd done well by their son.