Harry wishes he could go back in time and tell his younger self--always so lost, desperately searching for a family and a place to belong--that the answer was there all along. Right there next to him. Post-Hogwarts HHr.
Illustrations by Hastyhand.
It's Rose who brings up the topic. She's the clumsier, cheerful one of the twins, always looking to get up to some mischief, unlike her brother who prefers to bury himself in his books yet always gets dragged along with her antics anyway.
But if there's one thing the twins inherited from their parents, it's their curiosity and love for questions.
"Dad, when can we meet your parents?" She asks at breakfast one day and Harry nearly drops the spatula he's holding.
"Honey," Hermione's spoon pauses in mid air from where she was feeding their one year old son. "You know that your Grandma and Grandpa Potter aren't in this world anymore. We've had this talk."
"I know," Rose nods solemnly. "But I still want to meet them. James and I have so many things we want to tell them!"
James fidgets. "I read a book from the library where some kids went to their parents' graves and it helped put the parents' souls at ease. Can't we try that with Grandma and Grandpa?"
It's not like Harry never planned to take his kids to visit the Potters' grave, but he had imagined taking them when they were much older. However, now that he has them both gazing at him with those big, pleading eyes he has no choice but to change his plans.
He shares a look with Hermione, silently communicating, before he sighs and says, "All right. I guess we can make a visit."
"You hear that, Gus?" Rose leans towards her baby brother. "We're going to visit our other grandparents!"
____
Harry apparates his family to a field at the outskirts of Godric's Hollow. They make their way to the graveyard silently and even little Augustus, with his green eyes and black hair just like his own, is quiet against Hermione's shoulder.
He has returned to this place many times, but today Harry's steps feel especially heavy as he makes his way to the graves marked:
James Potter, born 27 March 1960, died 31 October 1981
Lily Potter, born 30 January 1960, died 31 October 1981
"Hello mum. Hello dad." He says softly, barely loud enough to be heard over the wind that sweeps in at that moment and blows his hair in stray directions.
Harry stands there and remembers a different time. A time where his seventeen-year-old self had come to this very graveyard, desperate for some comfort or closure by meeting his family, and had only been faced with the grim knowledge that his parents were gone, that their bones lay moldering below the earth, that they were perhaps already reduced to dust with no idea that their adult son was before them. Wishing that he could join them, thinking that maybe it would be better for him too to fall asleep, lie under the snow and join them in their slumber. Home at last.
Rose squeezes his hand and he is jolted back to the present when she speaks: "Hello Grandma and Grandpa. It's me, your granddaughter Rose."
James introduces himself too and soon the twins are rambling, telling their grandparents about their day so far, how they've been told so many stories about their namesakes, how they'll be sure to make them proud.
"Don't worry about Daddy," Rose looks up at Harry and back to the gravestone with a determined expression. "We'll take good care of him. Right, James?"
James takes the wreath he brought with him and places it on the grave. "Of course we will. That's what family does."
Hermione's eyes are watery; she too is lost in memories. "I promised that we would be happy together. And I'll keep that promise."
"You are happy, aren't you?" Rose bites her lip and asks Harry.
He steps forward and places his hand on the marble grave stone: the vestiges of the life he could have had lying in front of him and the life he has now—the family that so fiercely loves and cherishes him—waiting behind him.
Harry wishes he could go back in time and tell his younger self—always so lost, desperately searching for a family and a place to belong—that the answer was there all along. Right there next to him.
"I am," Hot tears spill down his cheeks and for once he doesn't try to hold them back. "I am happy."
_____
They take their time going back to the field. Along the way, Rose gets tired of walking and Harry raises her onto his shoulders, listening as she points at the clouds in the distance and tells him what they look like. James grows bored and wants to ride his broom once he gets to the clearing; Hermione gives him an ultimatum to be careful, but takes out the broom and snitch from her beaded bag anyway. Augustus is clearly tired of the excursion and pouts on Hermione's shoulder.
Harry closes his eyes and when he opens them again, nothing has changed. It's not a dream. The sun is going down and he's still surrounded by the chatter and laughter of his family.
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Hermione holds her hand out to him and he takes it.
Harry smiles.
"Let's go home."
_____
Author's Note: You can find the original art by hastyhand for this chapter:
On instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/homeishhr/ Or tumblr: https://hastyhand.tumblr.com/tagged/homeishhr
I wonder if anyone caught the reference to the story title's meaning here. The first time Harry visits the graveyard he wants to lie beneath the snow and make his home there, but things are different the second time around; his heart isn't with the dead anymore, but with the living. Harry's home is wherever Hermione and their family is.
