Abigail Potter, James and Lily's eldest daughter and Harry's older sister, has been missing for years, and everyone has given up hope of finding her alive. But what they do not know is that the girl has become a hunter, the most trusted companion of...
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The first to realize and move toward her daughter was Lily.
She stopped in front of the woman, looking at her face, her features, trying to memorize every single line. The hair and facial features were exactly like her mother's, red and long, but the shape of the face resembled a more feminine version of James's. The last time her parents had seen her, she was only six years old; now she was a woman, the determined look in the icy eyes she had probably inherited from her grandfather Fleamont. She was beautiful, and she was really there. It was not a dream, one of those after which Lily would wake up sobbing in her husband's arms.
The older woman paused for only a moment; she had not forgotten how Abby had seemed to her on the verge of battle when the light had transported her to Hogwarts. Would she have felt safe embracing Lily, an almost total stranger? All her doubts were dispelled when it was Abby who held her close. That embrace was full of unspoken things, invisible words flying over the heads of mother and daughter. It was not just a gesture of affection, it was a meeting, the merging of two souls that had been separated for too long and could now resume their hearts beating in unison. The younger woman could feel her mother's tears leaving a damp stain on her jacket, but she could not have cared less; if it were not for the wounds in her neck pulsing as the blood flowed out, she probably would have forgotten about those as well. For the first time in a while, as she sank her fingernails into the flannel fabric of her mother's dress, Abby also dropped the thick armor she had built over the years to dull the pain of her hunting life. She wept, wept so hard that her vision blurred from the tears that wet her cheeks, and she no longer even cared if she had an audience. Tears were still streaming down her face as Lily let go only to carry her into James' arms.
"Dad" it was this simple word that made James realize everything.
He had never really realized how big the hole in his chest was, how heavy the burden on his shoulders, until that embrace made his heart full again and eased the load that made it heavy. It didn't seem to him a minute had passed since he had been playing with little Abby and newborn Harry in the living room at home. God, how he had missed her.
Abby had always been an affectionate person, seeking constant physical contact, perhaps in part because neither Bobby nor John, her two biggest parental figures, were particularly prone to cuddling. She could, however, count on one hand the people she trusted so much to let her get close enough to have demonstrations of affection without risking being stabbed. But in James's arms she felt so protected that she forgot her distrust.
After all, her parents were her family. Maybe not her home, they did not possess all her love, not like the Winchesters did, but they were her family.
"Abigail?" it was Harry who spoke, causing Abby, still in James's arms, to turn toward her little brother.
"Oh, Harry," she whispered as she met and hugged the newest member of her family. Harry Potter, the little boy with the big green eyes who had now grown into a young man with crooked glasses just like his father. And in Harry's arms, Abby realized for the first time how life had never seemed so simple and at the same time so complicated. They were both there, her two lives, and one did not equal the other. She had always thought that looking for her old parents and brother would be a betrayal of the people who had raised and loved her, that it would be like taking advantage of them and then leaving. At the same time, she had no idea how long this would last. Maybe it was all one long, horrible, beautiful dream.
