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“I don’t know why you’re so fidgety.” She lights a fire with the tip of her wand and directs the fire to the five candles that surround them.
“Probably because we’re raising the dead.” Harry grits the words out through clenched teeth and pulls his wool cloak tightly around his body. He stands at her back as she’s kneeling and, as she instructed, he watches for prying eyes. “I don’t understand why we’re here. I hate coming here. Especially on Halloween.”
Hermione sighs and stands to face him. “Harry.” She places her hands on his shoulders and forces their gazes to meet. “What’s the first thing you said to Ron and I when you got inducted to the Aurors yesterday?”
He looks down between their feet at the sparse, dying grass and mumbles something she can’t make out. She squeezes against his shoulders and makes him look her in the eyes again.
“You said, ‘I wonder if my parents would be proud of me’.” He tried to look down again but she shakes his body in warning. “You’ve wondered so many times, Harry. You wonder all the time what your parents would think; about defeating Voldemort, about what they’d think about who you date, about your career, about your choices every single day.”
“Okay, okay. Blimey, Hermione.” Harry finally breaks free of her hold and pushes himself away from her. “It’s a normal feeling, alright? But no one else’s friends go out and bloody summon the dead to stop their friends’ whinging.”
She smiles at that, despite his annoyed glare. “Not everyone has a friend nearly as clever as I am.”
He sighs. She grins, because she knows she won the argument. The same argument they’ve had every day for a month.
“You’ll have to step inside the pentagram. And you cannot move or talk or sigh.”
As Harry steps into the circle, Hermione shifts him around until he’s just right. She grabs his hand and raises it to the sky.
“Are you going to chant or call forth a demon or…?” Harry asks her shrewdly, side-eying her with a half-cheeky, half-worried expression on his face.
“Please.” She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “We’re not performing a spell quite so archaic. No, I’m just channeling our powers together and-”
“Channeling our powers? What, like harnessing them together?”
“Yes, sort of. Can you shut up for a minute while I tap into the thin veil?”
“This is ridiculous, Hermione. It makes no sense and it’s like a horrible Halloween horror movie gone wrong.”
“It’s magic. You’ve been a wizard for how long? You have to know it’s not all silly wand waving and incantations.”
“You’re going to unleash some murder happy demon and we’re all going to die.” Harry pulls his hand from hers and turns to face her. “I’ve had enough murderous sociopaths for one lifetime, thanks.”
“Oh for Merlin’s sake,” Hermione groans and grabs his hand and then she tosses her head back as if to call to the heavens. “If the Keeper of the Veil intends to send us a murderer, I’ll eat a flobberworm.”
He stops talking and lets her get on with it. She doesn’t say anything else, just closes her eyes and mutters words through thing lips. She’s so quiet that her spell is lost on the gentle breeze that’s gliding through the graveyard.
Harry doesn’t close his eyes. He watches her and tries like hell to avoid looking at the gravestones belonging to his parents. How he allowed her to drag him to Godric’s Hollow on Halloween of all days, on a fool’s errand, to call forth the dead, well, he has no idea. Only for her, of course.
“Did you hear that?” She whispers to him suddenly and drops his hand. “Is that… them?”
Harry glances around and sees nothing in the dark. Even the church is quiet and dark tonight. “I don’t hear anything.”
“I could have sworn I heard-”
“Ho -ly…”
“When’d the graveyard get so big?”
“Is that… a church? Merlin, Prongs, they must have been worried about all the sinning you and Evans got up to.”
“Shut it, Padfoot.”
“Ow! Tosser.”
“Shut up, you two! Merlin, we have more important things to-”
“Oh, hello.”
Hermione stares. Harry stares. Neither of them say hello in return. They can’t believe it’s worked. Five formerly dead wizards, perfectly alive and going on as if they were never dead.
“Whatcha doing hanging out in a graveyard?” James, definitely James, with chaotic raven colored hair and square wiry frames over his hazel eyes, asks them as he peers at the circled star.
Hermione swallows.
“Er…” A taller man, a familiar man, with long hair and far too many tattoos, scratches the back of his neck before elbowing James in the side. “You’re not a pair of those… you know, necro-”
“Oh fuck’s sake, Padfoot!” It’s the copper-haired werewolf in human form that shuts him up. “It’s Hermione and Harry, for fuck’s sake.”
“I know,” Sirius says with a shrug of his shoulders. “Things could have changed for all I know.”
“You think that suddenly they’ve grown up and developed a… desire for dead bodies?”
“What! No!” Sirius stares at his friend in disgust. “I meant necro mancy , Moony, Merlin, what the fuck do you think about in your spare time?”
“Harry?” James’ voice is extremely quiet and a silence falls over the group in the graveyard.
“ Our Harry? ” It’s the redhead that breaks the silence and steps forward. “Oh, my word.”
“H-h-harry?”
Time stops as six heads spin around to see Peter Pettigrew with his hands to his mouth and his beady eyes darting around. Hermione takes a deep breath in time with Lily, just as Moony, Padfoot, Prongs, and Harry launch themselves at the ratty man.
“James!” Lily yells, but as she steps forward to stop the scuffle, Hermione grabs her hand and yanks her back.
“I think they need this,” she whispers to her best friend’s mum. “I didn’t actually mean to bring Peter back.”
“Why ever not?”
“He… well… he killed you, didn’t he?” Hermione frowned, feeling relatively ashamed of herself for even asking the question.
Lily smiles, and it’s such a lovely mum’s smile, so sweet and reassuring. Her hand squeezes around Hermione’s. “It’s easy to confuse things, I think. Voldemort killed James and I. Peter merely found himself caught between doing what is right and what is easy.”
Hermione warms to Lily immediately. “You are far more forgiving than I could be. I haven’t forgiven him for everything he’s done.”
Lily takes a deep breath. “I’ve had a long time to consider Peter. I don’t really believe the boys helped him much, not really. And I don’t condone what Peter did, but I think I understand it a little bit.”
“You son of a-”
“How could you , Pete!”
“I’m going to gut you and feed you to Beaky. Oh, damn, Harry, is Beaky still-”
“ Beaky? ” James’ fist halts mid-collision with Pete’s jaw. “What the hell is a Beaky?”
A sickening crunch fills Godric’s Hollow and Hermione winces. She watches them pummel Peter and raises her wand after several moments. Perhaps Lily has a point, and while she’s far from forgiveness, this isn’t exactly what she has in mind for Harry’s time with his family.
“Protego!” She shoots and blocks Peter with a pearly barrier. “Knock it off, you lot. I haven’t brought you here to settle your scores.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have brought us back!” Sirius pushes his hair back and takes deep breaths as his chest heaves. “That rat destroyed everything!”
“He’s the reason we died, why we never had a chance to raise-”
Once again, six heads turned to stare, only this time it’s in Harry’s direction. He turns bright red and glances down at his feet and scratches at the back of his neck.
“Harry?” James takes a tentative step forward but is bowed over by Sirius whose arms are outstretched.
“Harry! My boy!”
“Your boy?” Remus steps up next to Harry as well and claps him on the back. “You’ve got facial hair now? Interesting.”
Harry laughs and musses his hair around, and it’s Lily that follows him in laughter and then his eyes are only on her.
“ My boy,” Lily says and holds her hand out for him to take, which he does immediately. Her free hand is running through his hair and her green eyes are lit up like fairy lights. “Of course you got James’ hair.”
Harry lets a sheepish laugh pass his lips and then he’s trying like hell not to get emotional. That’s when Hermione slips her hand into his other hand and smiles at him encouragingly.
“Our hair is very charming, thank you very much.” James interjects and slides next to Lily with his arm around her shoulders. “It charmed you.”
Sirius busts out a loud laugh and Remus joins him. “Not likely, mate. She’s ordered more tonics than you know to try and tame that beast.”
“Is that why my pumpkin juice tasted funny?” James raises an eyebrow at his wife. “Sneaky git.”
The group falls into a comfortable silence again. Peter remains on the outskirts, nursing a bruised eye and busted lip. Every few seconds, Sirius flicks his hand and Peter winces. Remus pretends not to notice and Harry shares a smug smile with his winking godfather.
“Not that this isn’t unbelievably extraordinary, Hermione,” Remus says, finally disrupting the calm. “But, why ever have you broken around a dozen laws and called us back here tonight?”
All eyes found her nervous face. “I thought that Harry could… did you say a dozen ?”
Sirius barks a laugh. James glances between her and Lily, and Remus nods solemnly. “A dozen or more.”
She chews her lip and glances at Harry, who gestures with his hand to tell her to go ahead.
“Harry,” she says simply and shrugs her shoulders. How else could she possibly explain it?
“She worries,” he says as way of explanation. “I’ve been wondering if…”
“If you’d be proud of him, for everything,” she finishes for him. “He’s been made an auror and he defeated Voldemort.”
Only Peter flinches at the name.
“You’re an auror, are you?” James asks his son with a big grin. “And is your first official act going to be arresting your girlfriend?”
“She’s not-”
“I’m not-”
“Bit of a sore spot, Prongs,” Sirius whispers loudly. “Of course we’re proud of you, Harry.”
“Because I’m family,” Harry says and glances down at his feet.
It’s his mother that assures him. “Yes, of course because you’re family, darling. But for loads of other reasons.”
“You just helped us kick Wormtail’s arse, for one,” Sirius says and pretends to smack him again just to see him wince.
“You’ve defeated the darkest Wizard to exist,” Remus tells him proudly. “You’re raising my son as his godfather, too.”
“And you’ve got the Potter hair,” James adds with a cheeky grin at his wife.
“You let me go,” Peter whispers and steps back as heads turn to him. “When you could have had me killed, you spared my life.”
It is James who steps forward to Wormtail and offered him a hand. “You don’t deserve it, Pete, for everything you did, but I’m going to forgive you because eternity is a long time to earn it.”
Peter takes his hand gingerly and wipes at the tears starting to form in his eyes. “I never, never intended…”
“We know, mate,” Remus tells him gruffly. “We know.”
Sirius clears his throat. “Let’s get a drink. Merlin knows how long we’ve got left here and there’s no better way to catch up than firewhisky.”
“Of course,” Lily and Hermione both say while rolling their eyes.
James eyes them both curiously again and glances to Sirius. “You’re sure about that? Just friends?”
“Yes,” Harry whispers. “Just friends.”
Sirius leads the charge toward a little pub within Godric’s Hollow. It’s a dive, not really taken care of, but has a large booth in the back that they pile into as Harry grabs them all drinks. They receive a few curious glances from older patrons of the pub, but no one can place the faces of the former residents of Godric’s Hollow.
“Okay, let's start with a toast.” James picks up his firewhisky and raises it high.
“Ah, shit, he’s going to do it again,” Sirius whinges and hangs his head so that a curtain of hair covers his face.
“Do what?” Hermione asks, glancing around at the others with a small twinge of fear. She knows the Marauders’ stories; if Sirius is worried, perhaps they all should be.
Remus shakes his head, a small smile at the corner of his mouth while Peter sips his firewhisky thinking no one is noticing him.
“James has a habit of being extra…” Lily lets the word hang while she tries to find the right term to describe it, and then laughs and shrugs. “That’s it, just extra.”
Next to Hermione, Harry is snickering and he’s the happiest she’s ever seen him. He looks so carefree and light and it makes her heart pound a little bit. She had no idea just how much Harry needed something like this, to see them all together, to know how proud they are to have him for a son. She places her hand on his bicep and squeezes. He glances down and smiles at her, a true and genuine sort of smile that lights his whole face.
“To Harry,” James begins with a flourish of his drink. He runs his free hand through his hair and shakes it out so that it falls in just the right array of mess. “Our son, the vanquisher of Dark Lords, the future of The Ministry, and one day a very proud husband just like his father before him. It’s in our blood, son. You’ll snag the witch of your dreams even if it takes eighty seven ‘no, Potter’ rejections and fifty two stinging hexes to the knack-”
“To Harry!” Remus interrupts and leads the group in taking their first of many shots of firewhisky.
As the night goes on, the firewhisky is flowing and the table is filled with unabashed belly laughter. Even Hermione is flushing with the warmth of the whisky in her belly and the many tales of the Marauders in Hogwarts. She secretly believes them to be brilliant, but Lily whispers conspiratorially that perhaps she shouldn’t say so outloud or else the afterlife will be simply unbearable.
“So I said to old Moody, I said,” Sirius is hanging from Peter’s shoulder while the man snorts his laughter into his glass of alcohol. “Aye, that’s mad!”
“And James!” Remus exclaims and slams a hand on the table, “he says, ‘Aye, that’s mad, mad I say’!”
“And then!” Peter squeaks through a nasally giggle and wheezes, “he says, ‘Aye, that’s mad, mad I say, Mad Eye!”
Four of them are in hysterics while Harry, Hermione, and Lily grin at their storytelling.
“So that’s how Mad Eye got his nickname?” Harry asks through a rumbling chuckle.
“Aye!” They all answer him through another fit of laughter.
Hermione can’t stop the smile that’s permanently fixed onto her face. She leans back and rests against the cushion of the booth, meaning to take it all in and remember this night forever. She feels something, though, an arm that’s tossed over the back of her seat. She doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, but she’s sure it’s Harry’s and she’s not sure what to do.
James seems to notice and winks at her. “So, girlfriend,” he says to Harry as his gaze slides from Hermione to his son. “You’re certain there’s no one?”
Hermione feels Harry’s arm twitch behind her but he doesn’t remove it. He shakes his head and then drinks a little more.
“James!” Lily berates him quietly. “Not every person is so over the top with their feelings!”
“I am not over the top!” He demands. “I’ll have you know that Sirius, Remus, and Pete only had to talk me out of a dozen proposal ideas. And I admit, nudity would have been a terrible idea.”
Hermione and Harry laugh together and finally catch eyes. She chews her bottom lip and his eyes are right there to watch. He’s fixated on it and his face is flushed and somehow his hair is more impossible than it’s ever been. Hermione reaches up and pushes the chunks of hair from his forehead.
“Thank you for this,” Harry whispers as she pulls her hand away. “I didn’t know how much I needed this.”
“For someone who was so worried I’d raise a murderer from the beyond-”
“Technically,” Sirius butts in with a finger in the air that suddenly points to Peter, “you did .”
It’s the playful flash in Harry’s eyes that causes her gut to clench. She shakes her head, “no, no, no, Harry!”
The rest of the table perks up. James leans in and says, “Oh, what’s this now?”
“Hermione told me that if she accidentally raised a murderer tonight,” Harry explains with a massive, toothy grin, “she’d eat a flobberworm.”
“Yes!” Sirius shouts and then, “we are so doing this! Peter, go find a flobberworm!”
“Sirius!” Hermione groans. “No, I’m not eating a bloody flobberworm.”
“Oh, she’s swearing now,” Remus chimes in. “You’ve struck a nerve, Padfoot.”
“You’re not going to make this poor girl eat a flobberworm,” Lily points her finger at each Marauder in turn and then motions for Peter to sit down again.
“Oh, fine then,” James sighs, a little bit too innocently Hermione notices. “I suppose we’ll have to think of some other penance.”
“Gallows!” Sirius suggests and Hermione startles with wide eyes.
“Too dramatic, Pads,” Remus tells him and then smiles across the table at Hermione. “I think we should just let the poor girl alone. Look at what she’s accomplished tonight.”
“Boooo.” Sirius gives Remus a thumbs down to which Remus responds with his own rude hand gesture.
“I think I have it,” James says casually, a small but wicked sort of smile creeping onto his face. “As an act of penance, to make up for lying to her best friend, I think Hermione and Harry should kiss and make up.”
Hermione pales and she feels Harry’s arm twitch behind her. She watches as all of the eyes around the table find her face and she swallows around a dry lump in her throat.
“I- I don’t think that’s necessary,” Harry says quietly, and he brings his arm around her shoulders and tries to comfort her. “It was just a joke, really.”
“The witch must pay for her crimes!” Sirius announces and jumps onto the table. Firewhisky flies everywhere. “You will snog for no less than ten seconds. Pay the piper, atone for your sins, swallow the pill, follow the white rabbit-”
“Okay, Padfoot, they get it,” Peter says after an apologetic look to Harry and Hermione. “Sorry.”
“Might as well get it over with,” Remus advises them with a little laugh. “Once they set their mind to something, they rarely back off.”
“Is this really how you want to spend your last few moments with your son?” Lily asks James with a raised eyebrow.
“Hell yes it is, Evans!” James points at Harry and Hermione. “They’re in love and have no idea. They’re scared of it. We’ve been here all of a handful of hours and we can see it!”
He looks to the other Marauders who all nod in agreement, though Peter and Remus are perhaps less conspicuous than James and Sirius.
“I will not rest easily until I know my son has the very best wife-”
“Er…” Harry is pale now, too, and wound tight like a coil next to Hermione. “Too much, dad.”
Lily laughs, “I told you he’s extra.”
“Harry.” Hermione turns to him and feels his fingers dig into her shoulder. “Let’s just… appease them. I’m more willing to kiss my best friend than I am to eat a flobberworm.”
Harry glances around the table and then down to Hermione again. He nods sharply and takes a deep breath. “You’re sure?”
It’s her turn to nod. “I’m sure.”
“Time’s a tickin’, Potter!” Sirius reminds them and taps his watch with a finger. “Ten seconds.”
Hermione side-eyes Sirius and notices the face of his watch. Almost midnight. The spell will break soon. They’ll be gone. Sirius catches her eye and his carefree expression morphs slightly into something sadder. He needs this, they all do; no sad goodbye, no harrowing journey back to the afterlife. So, she chews her lips and faces Harry again, and she swears she hears one of them mutter a ‘thank you’ under their breath.
Harry inches closer, his arm around her shoulder tightens as his free hand comes up and gentle strokes her jaw.
“I’m sorry for this,” he whispers a hair’s breadth away from her lips.
“It’s better than flobberworms?” Hermione breathes out a small laugh.
His lips are on hers and four wolf whistles and catcalls surround them, but Hermione barely registers the noises. His lips are soft and full and they press so firmly against hers that she takes a sharp breath through her nose and closes her eyes and she never wants it to end.
Harry’s hand on her jaw is tighter now and it pulls her face closer while he tilts his head and deepens their kiss. No one is paying attention to the time, but this feels so right that neither of them want to pull away.
She makes a noise in the back of her throat when his tongue finds hers and her fingers curl into his jumper. She feels warm and whole and happy, all of her nerves are gone and replaced with something far lighter.
His lips leave hers and his forehead is pressed against hers. Their eyes are open and she feels just as he looks; surprised and flushed and as if her entire soul just discovered its purpose.
They break away from one another but only by the barest of spaces. It’s too quiet now, only their breathing between them. The booth is otherwise empty, the spirits of the Marauders and Lily are no longer there. Silence remains in their wake, but Harry doesn’t seem sad or angry. Instead, he pulls her closer and nuzzles his nose against her cheek.
“Happy Halloween, Hermione,” he whispers between soft kisses.
“Definitely better than flobberworms,” she says quietly and his chest rumbles under her fingers.