Ghosts of Memory
Chapter 1- Ghosts of Memory
Well, here's another chapter... just so you know, I'm going to get to the major plot thread in the next chapter so prepared to be shocked! It's a doozy unseen in its enormity in this series since we discovered that Harry hadn't actually died at the end of 'Glamours.'
And join my yahooogroup at this address: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/firegoddessHPBtVSfanfiction
And, just to make it interesting, 20 points to whomever can identify where I'm going with this plot based upon previous portions of both 'Glamours' and 'Hidden Truths' and seemingly ubiquitous comments and conversations held between characters. I'll give you a hint as well: it's going to vaguely mirror a major plot twist from one of my favourite televisions shows....that airs on ABC...but that's all the hints you're getting! (This has all been planned in advance people!!! Although now I have to make a fourth story to chronicle the lives of Harry and Willow's children so that's changed....)
Enjoy!
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Harry Potter felt like he was dying, as he always did on this day, the day after what he had come to regard as the lowest point of his year. This was the alcohol’s fault, as he very well knew but he hadn’t as of yet discovered a way to make it through New Years Eve, the day that he had married Willow and the only day of the year that he allowed himself to grieve openly, without getting pissed out of his mind.
His children, he knew, were starting to wonder why they couldn’t see him on New Years. Indeed, they were very intelligent and powerful children, taking after their mother he was sure because Merlin knew that he was not nearly as smart or as astute in powers of deduction as Willow had been.
With a sigh and a wince as the sun peeked through the blinds in his bedroom, he rolled over and closed his eyes, trying to will the headache he had away.
“It’s not going to work you know,” a feminine chuckle sounded from the foot of the bed, dragging him from the sleep that the soft bed and the blessed silence had beckoned him to only moments before. “My best friend Xander always tried to ignore a hangover and it never worked.”
Harry sat up in surprise, his jaw dropping as he took in the woman who stood just 3 feet away from him. “W-Willow?” he stammered.
“You know other women who come in your room at all hours of the day and night?” she said, quirking an eyebrow in his direction. “OK, scratch that, besides Molly, Tonks, Hermione and Ginny. They’ve family so that’s different…but seriously Harry, is there something I should know? Something I’m missing?” she teased. “Is there another woman?”
“What? No! Of course not…” he blushed, his stomach churning as the alcohol from last night and the shock of having what he assumed was Willow’s ghost in his bedroom mixed menacingly.
She smiled wryly. “Harry. That was a joke. You’re living like a monk and I know that. The question is why? And why do you do this to yourself?” She drawled, gesturing to his clearly hung over self. “What if the kids saw you like this?”
“They won’t. They’re at Ron and Hermione’s.” He reassured her, running his hands through his already wild hair and placing a hand to his aching head, all the while wondering if he’d be able to save face with this apparition of his wife if he gave into the nausea that threatened to overtake him and made a dash for the porcelain-god in his bathroom.
Willow gave him a disgusted look as she noticed the pain he was in. “Have I taught you nothing? I mean seriously, all those months of training, a guided fucking tour of my brain and you can’t remember a simple hangover spell?” She asked without menace, despite the tone of her words, before murmuring a spell to get rid of the stomachache and rehydrating Harry’s alcohol induced dehydration.
Harry cast her an annoyed look as the spells did their work on his body, the stomach pain gone but the headache remaining. With a sigh, he reached over to the dresser and pulled out a pain relief potion, downing it in a single movement. “Happy now?”
“Very,” Willow smiled brightly. “Now where were we? Aw yes, the children…what WOULD they say if they could have seen you moments ago before you realized you were a wizard, a powerful wandless one at that, capable of banishing their own hangovers away? Or how about why you got drunk in the first place?” With a sigh, she sat down next to him. “That’s not the way I’d of chosen to commemorate our 5th Anniversary Harry. Dinner, some flowers, a walk under the stars, that’s my idea of a good anniversary…”
“Well you weren’t here to celebrate it with were you?” He hissed angrily, fed up with her patronizing tones of what his children would or would not think of him, let alone her opinion of him as a wizard.
Willow however, didn’t look shocked, she simply sighed again, heavily. “Some things we can’t change Harry. Me not being here is unfortunately one of them. I do keep track of you and the kids though. I’m not entirely gone. I talk to them fairly often actually, teach them some tricks, levitation and whatnot…”
“Lily and Lucy weren’t just making it up then…” Harry trailed off.
Willow shook her head. “No, they weren’t. I’ve been visiting them since they were born. James too. I know them as well as you know them. Just…differently.” She paused. “Congratulations on the promotion by the way.” She said, referring to his new position at the Head of the Auror division.
“Oh, thanks,” he replied awkwardly, not knowing what to say to his deceased wife now that she was here. His brow furrowed in confusion, “Hey, how’d you know about that?”
“I know all,” Willow put on a mysterious voice. “Seriously though, it’s not like I can’t find out these things through the grapevine. It IS kept track of.”
Now it was Harry’s turn for his eyebrow to quirk, thinking of the only people he could think of who would have been keeping track of him and his family beyond Willow. “Been talking to Mum and Dad lately then?”
Willow got a deer in the headlights look, startling Harry and herself at his last question and her reaction to it. “Er, no. No I haven’t. Actually never met them. I just…keep track of how you and my babies are doing.”
“Wait a minute, I thought you were in heaven, or wherever they put ghosts nowadays, where are you exactly?” Harry asked in confusion.
“Let’s just say somewhere else for now,” she murmured, thinking that Harry was assuming an awful lot. “You’ll know soon enough.” With a glance at her watch, she got up. “Would you look at the time? I should be going…”
“Wait. You just got here…” Harry said quietly, looking so lonely that Willow wanted to stay forever…but she couldn’t. She had a previous engagement that she couldn’t break. “And you didn’t answer my question…”
“If I told you I’d have to kill you,” she smirked at him. “And the kids are home, so I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Willow wait,” Harry protested in vain, as she faded from his sight. Suddenly, the door to his bedroom slammed open as his three children ran into his room and jumped on his bed.
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” Lucy, the loudest of the bunch cried, as she flung her arms around her father. “You’ll never guess what Grandpa Sirius can do!”
“Yeah Dad, it’s SO cool…” James re-iterated Lucy’s previous statement with a confirmation of his own.
“And just what can Grandpa Sirius do?” Harry asked shakily, having not had the time to get over Willow’s abrupt entry and departure into his room.
“He can change into a dog,” Lily chimed in quietly, being by far the quietest of Harry’s children. “Can we get a dog Daddy?” Indeed, she and Lucy were as different as night and day, despite their identical appearances. From the pictures that Harry had been sent by Willow’s friends in America, they were almost exact duplicates of Willow when she was that age, although their hair was a darker red, reminiscent of the original Lily Potter, his mother. It was almost like they had cut a person in half when Lily and Lucy Potter were created. Lily was quiet, loved to read and could stay still for hours at a time, whereas Lucy reminded him very much of a young Lucy Emerson, the character Willow had become when she had moved to Hogwarts what seemed like an eternity ago. She was fearless, energetic, and had a wit as sharp as a knife.
She and Algernon Malfoy, Draco and Ginny’s son, were always getting into trouble, the latter spending a fair bit of time at Ron and Hermione’s now, what with the balancing act that his parents were now dealing with, having ushered in twin girls only a year ago, their second oldest, Edward only being 2 at the time. Ginny was now staying at home for a bit in order to care for her family and Algernon, not wanting to spend so much time with his younger siblings, was now a frequent visitor in their area of Hogsmeade. Indeed, Ginny and Draco lived only 5 minutes west of Hogsmeade itself in a manor that had been in the Malfoy’s possession for centuries. After Lucius’s death 5 years ago and his mothers shortly thereafter, Draco had inherited everything.
“We’ll see sweetie,” Harry was broken out of his thoughts and answering Lily question however by his daughter’s continued and familiar chattering, Lily’s again, apparently unperturbed by her fathers lack of a response. “And look what Aunt Hermione gave me!”
A burst of laughter spilled out of Harry as he noticed the familiar tome that Hermione had apparently saw fit to grace his daughter’s already large book collection: Hogwarts, A History: The Unabridged Edition.
“Dad, are you coming down for breakfast? Aunt Hermiones making pancakes,” his bottomless pit of a son spoke up. Indeed, James could eat at anytime, anywhere, reminding Harry of Ron in his voracious appetite. He guessed that’s what you got when you lived next door to a Weasley. Apparently they all were good eaters.
“Alright kids,” he broke out of his inner thoughts, “Just let me get dressed and we’ll go downstairs.”
Remus’s voice suddenly broke through Harry’s words to his children. “What did I tell you about bothering your father?” he asked in a mock-stern voice, sensing from Harry’s attitude and easy-going look on his face that he hadn’t minded being woken up in the slightest.
“Daddy doesn’t look sick, do you Daddy?” Lucy spoke up sweetly, putting her best don’t-get-me-in-trouble face.
“No sweetie, I’m not sick,” Harry murmured, sensing the lies that had been told to cover for his bender. Willow had been right. This needed to stop.
“See Grandpa Remus, he’s alright and he’s gonna have pancakes with us!” Lucy continued.
“Is he now?” Remus exchanged concerned looks with Harry, who appeared to be fine, but with Harry you never quite knew. Harry sent him back a smile and moved to get out of bed, frowning as he noticed he was only in his boxers. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember getting back to his house last night…he’d have to ask Hermione and Ron about that when he got downstairs.
But for now, as he watched Remus herd his children up and out of the room to let their father get dressed, he forgot about last night and looked forward to breakfast with his children and probably the Weasley clan too…
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“How’re you feeling this morning Harry?” Ron asked quietly, as he sat down next to his best friend at Harry’s vast kitchen table. Indeed, when he and Willow had bought this table, they had envisioned filling it with children of their own. Instead, Harry and his 3 children filled it with friends and relatives (generally Weasley’s) who, after Willow’s death 4 years ago, seemed to always be dropping by, especially at this time of year as everyone seemed to know of Harry’s yearly breakdown.
“Good,” he answered, eating a forkful of Hermione’s homemade-the-muggle-way pancakes smothered in maple syrup, a gift from the Canadian Ministry of Magic to Harry for services rendered last year through the Auror connections that he had.
Ron raised an incredulous eyebrow in his direction. “You’re telling me that you drank an entire bottle of firewhiskey and don’t feel even the slightest bit hung over now,” he said in a louder than necessary voice. The children, sitting in the family room watching cartoons off of the satellite dish that Harry had had installed two years ago, didn’t appear to hear Ron’s statement though, being too involved in the episode of ‘Sponge Bob Square Pants’ that was on the television and their own pancakes, to care.
Harry shrugged, embarrassed as the eyes of all the other adults at the table spun to meet his, some amused, others disappointed. “I didn’t notice that I drank that much….”
“Well, you did mate. Passed out before Hermione and I could get you to bed you did.” Ron continued, still eating. “And don’t try to change the subject. What’s your secret? Is this a new spell, or are you drinking this heavily all the time?” At this last statement, Ron’s eyes narrowed as well in suspicion and disappointment.
Harry laughed nervously, not sure how the people in the room were going to take what he was about to say. They would either think he was crazy or pity him, probably both. “Willow’s my secret.” He said, continuing as he saw the raised eyebrows of the other seated at the table. “I woke up this morning, feeling like death warmed over, as per usual on this day,” he said bitterly. “And Willow, or her ghost or whatever, was standing right there, berating me for the example I was setting me for my children and then for my poor showing as a wizard who couldn’t even perform a hangover charm on myself, one that SHE taught me apparently.” Harry laughed in remembrance. “It was all very weird but she cast the charms on me herself and then left abruptly after telling me that my version of celebrating an anniversary was NOT up to her discerning standards.” A nervous laugh went up in the room.
“Er, are you sure Harry? Hallucinations have been known to happen…especially when you’ve had quite a lot to drink…” Sirius asked quietly, awkwardly, not knowing what exactly to say to his godson who was apparently seeing his dead wife now.
“It’s okay if you think I’m crazy,” Harry said quietly. “I think I’m crazy too. But, I don’t have a hangover and I’m fairly certain she’s disappointed in me, which would be fairly accurate in terms of a reaction that I would’ve gotten from her so I’m pretty sure that it happened.”
“Well,” Hermione broke the silence. “We all went to Hogwarts, ghosts are fairly normal occurrences aren’t they? I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Willow was back to knock some sense into you Harry Potter.”
“Thank you Hermione, I think.” Harry frowned, remembering something Lily had told him that morning. “And while we’re on the subject of knocking some sense into people, just what do you think you’re doing giving Lily such heavy reading?” He looked around at the table and the blank faces and clarified. “She gave Lily Hogwarts, A History: The Unabridged Edition.” A raucous laugh went up from everyone. Indeed, this was a typical Hermione move. Her own children had been hearing Hogwarts, A History for bedtime stories for years.
Hermione smiled in amusement, her eyes twinkling wildly. “I thought she might enjoy it, seeing how she’s read through all the books you’ve given her already. This should take her awhile.” Harry had to admit, Hermione had a point. With a nod in acknowledgement, he looked around the corner into the living room, taking in the sight of all the kids but one gathered around the big screen television, Lily having sat in Harry’s overstuffed armchair that he had used for reading to and feeding the children when they had been smaller, looking very small, the new book wide open in her lap and a contented smile on her face. It had been a good present indeed.
“Thank you Hermione,” he said softly. According to Willow’s best friend Xander Harris, who Harry still kept in contact with, even after all these years, Willow had been the same way, devouring books and reading when she was 3. Indeed, all the Potter children had been fast learners, thus, (in their own words, and to the delight of their Uncles Fred and George) leaving more time for mischief. “And thank you as well for making sure I got back last night. I’m assuming Rosmerta flooed one of you?”
“Me,” Sirius said quietly. “Then I flooed Ron who went out to get you.”
“Well it won’t be happening again,” Harry said firmly, remembering how Willow had compared him to a monk that morning. “I’ve decided I’m not going to wallow anymore. Willow wouldn’t want that.”
“That’s wonderful Harry,” Tonks said exuberantly, “Just let me get my date book out here and we’ll get you back in the dating gam…”
She was cut off by Harry’s clipped voice. “No. Not that kind of not wallowing. I’m definitely not ready for that kind of step. I appreciate the thought though.” He tacked this sentiment on at the end, although he certainly didn’t mean it but not wanting to hurt Tonks’ feelings. “ I mean, the once a year benders of mine are stopping. I’m getting too old for these selfish things.”
“Harry, you’re only 29.” Sirius jumped in, secretly agreeing with him though. The drinking had to stop.
Harry raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Exactly. And I have three children to set an example for. Willow reminded me of that this morning. So that’s stopping. I’m sick of having to get others to pick me up off the ground when I fall apart. So the answer is simple: I just stay together, and try to heal the best I can.”
The room was silent a moment, not sure how likely this was. After all, Willow had been so much to Harry.
“Alright, I know that’s maybe asking for a bit much, and I know that part of me will always wish she wasn’t…”a lump formed in Harry’s throat and his voice cracked but he continued on. “Wasn’t…dead…but she is, and I can’t change that. I can only move on because she wouldn’t have wanted me to stop living just because she did.” He sniffed loudly and wiped his now teary eyes, taking in the concerned looks from his friends and family.
“You okay Harry?” Hermione asked quietly. “Do you want us to take the children for another day, because that would be alright.”
“Yeah Mate,” Ron piped up awkwardly. “You sure you don’t need another day?”
“No,” Harry said, pulling himself together. “I’m alright.” And he was. Somehow, he was. Having spoken to Willow, however briefly, he had found closure of some sort. And that made all the difference.
