Marauders - Always - Part One

CXLVI: The Smallest Hours of the Morning

It was half twelve when Harry had a dream.

He was still laying in his bed in the dormitory, face down in the pillows, crying, but he dreamed there was a shift on the mattress behind him, as though someone had taken a seat on the edge of it. He didn't look up. At first, he thought it was maybe Ron, but there was too much weight to the body to be Ron. He knew he ought to be scared, then, at the thought of someone sitting down there like that, but he wasn't...

Somehow he knew it was his father.

Then his hand pressed against Harry's back. Firm enough to be felt, but not hard, just... soothingly heavy. Gently, he rubbed his back in slow, gentle circles as the tears continued, soaking his pillow. Then, Harry felt tension releasing from his spine and he sighed as it went out of him.

"Alright, Harry?" James Potter asked.

"I'm scared, Dad," Harry croaked into the pillow.

"I know, buddy..." James's voice was low and soothing.

The mattress shifted slightly and he felt James lean over him, felt a kiss pressed against the back of Harry's head as his hands worked the knots in his spine. 

"You're going to be alright, kid."

"Thanks Dad," Harry whispered.

He could feel his father's hands rubbing his back, hear his father's breathing... It was so vivid that when he woke a bit after one, Harry half expected James to still be there.

But of course he wasn't.

He never had been.

It had only been a dream.

Harry sat up and drank the glass of water left beside his bed by the house elves, and he stared at the picture he had there on the nightstand - his mother and father, in front of a water fountain, hugging one another and smiling up at him, half dancing in an autumn breeze, then sharing a quick kiss, laughing, and smiling back up at him...

He took off his glasses and put them on the nightstand next to the picture and lay back down.

Funny because dream or not, the tension really had left his shoulders, at least, and Harry was able to fall into a peaceful sleep.

Hundreds of miles away, in a small wizarding village north of London, a shaggy black dog trotted slowly, reluctantly, down a cobblestone road. He passed by the Lion's Den Pub and the little grocer. The dog slipped past the old church, hesitated at the kirkyard, staring through the wrought iron gate at the headstones within, silhouetted by the waning moon's light.

Snuffles feet padded across the road and he sat on the curb, eyes staring up at the remains of the house.

It felt haunted.

He wasn't alone outside the cottage, either, even at the smallest hours of the morning, before the sun was up and indeed before most would even call it morning, really.

A couple witches and a wizard stood on the side walk, wands lit... Nobody that he recognized. Complete strangers, paying respects with light and sparks. 

It was wizarding tradition these days - for some, at least, for the ones who called November Remembrance Day, at least. Flowers were laid at the gate of the house in Godric's Hollow. Lilies because they didn't know the Potters enough to know that their flower had always been bluebells and chrysanthemums, rather than her namesake. When he was small, people left little gifts for Harry - things that never made it to him but were later collected by some Ministry worker that came to clean up the historic site each November and the gifts were either donated or pitched away. These days, they left little letters in scrolls and envelopes and small stones. There was a silly superstition among witches and wizards that if a stone from a new home was brought to the Potter Cottage and left upon the wall, the shield of protection that had saved Harry from the killing curse would be upon the home that the stone came from as well...

It was all very somber feeling.

How things change - so quickly altered from one Halloween to another.

The most joyful Halloween of Sirius Black's life had happened here.

And so had the worst.

If he was braver, he would go inside.

He went around back and sat in the field, away from the smell of the lilies and the sight of the illuminated wands, away from the people who came each Halloween to celebrate the demise of Voldemort. 

The grass outback had grown tall enough that if Snuffles laid down, he could disappear amongst it. So he lay there in the dark field amongst the grass, listening to it shiver in the breeze. The way it moved sounded like a whisper... and as he drifted to sleep, he almost thought he could hear Lily's voice, singing a lullaby.