It's Christmas Time Again: A Time-Traveling TMS Holiday Extravaganza

Christmas 2010 (Part Two)

There is not one place in all the world that captures a Christmas scene as well as Godric's Hollow.

The stone buildings of the village were dusted with snow, the big Christmas tree in the square glowing with twinkling lights and big red baubles, people milling about the road and calling out hullo and Happy Christmas to one another. Store fronts glowed warm from within and the Lion's Den pub smelled of warm food as music hummed from within.

I wished we were a part of that revelry. From the street in front of the Potter Cottage, all that festive atmosphere could just be seen at the far end of the road, like looking through a snow globe's glass... Time seemed to stand still for us, hanging in the air around that one parchment.

Across the road, the church loomed high into the sky, the moonlight illuminating the stained glass in the tower so that a brightly colored shadow fell over the cobblestones and snow, which crunched beneath our feet.

I knew where we were going before Harry ever stepped off the sidewalk.

Every year on the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, Gran, Harry, and I had come to this churchyard to visit my Mum and Dad's grave. The stones were in a cluster together - Mum's was there, and then Dad's... then their friend, Sirius... Then the joint stone for Lily and James, and a bit past that another joint stone for Fleamont Charlus and Euphemia Dora.

We stood in the snow, staring at the stones, Harry still holding the letter Dudley had given him. I kept stealing glances at the parchment in his hand, my eyes following the shape of letters, trying to pick out and mentally piece together the ones that made up my name.

What would my name look like in his handwriting?

Harry held out the parchment to me suddenly.

I looked up at him, but his eyes were trained on the stones. I took the parchment and unraveled it, reading it over again and again. It wasn't a message for me, it was written before I'd been born, and I had so many questions about it, but just seeing his writing, knowing he'd touched this paper...

They would be desperately proud of you.

As am I.

I touched the ink. Pausing on my letters.

They would...

"I wish I got this letter," Harry said quietly. "I could have had so many more stories to tell you about him if I'd just been closer to him. I thought - it's stupid, but I thought he didn't want anything more than to be my professor. It was after he died I learned he wanted to be my -- more."

I was staring hard at the letters. T ... e... d... y.... In my head I strung them together, reordered them...

"When he asked me to be your godfather. That's when I knew he wanted more."

I looked up.

"I consider you my son, Teddy." Harry said. "I just - I want that to be clear."

I took two quick steps and wrapped my arms around his side. "I have always considered you my father," I said. "Always."

Something about the word made him laugh under his breath. I gave him back the letter and he put it into his pocket carefully, and reached down and put one hand on the back of my head.

"You know; the first time I ever came here to Godric's Hollow was the Christmas before you were born. Aunt Hermione was with me, and we stood here at this very spot. At the time, only my Mum and Dad's stone was here. We didn't have a body or a proper funeral for Sirius. I had his stone put there when we put in Remus and Tonks's stones. It seemed right to do it, to have something here for him, too. They belonged together. All of them."