A middle-aged woman knelt beside two grass-covered graves. In her arms she held two bouquets: one with yellow lilies, the other with red roses. Her eyes brimmed with tears she had been holding back for fifteen years and nine months. She laid the lilies down in front of a tombstone that proclaimed the death of Lily Potter. “Hello Lily,� she said quietly. Her voice rang with a pain that one should hold. The words were rushed, raw and barely audible in the cool morning air. The sun had not yet ascended, but a light fringe of the rising sun kissed the horizon. The woman did not notice the picturesque scene that surrounded her, for she was too focused on the long lost dead in front of her. When she could bare the sight of the cold stones no longer, she looked to the roses still cupped in her tiny hands.

She was fairly pretty, with reddish brown hair that fell lightly to her ribs. The skin around her eyes was adorned with crows’ feet, and she had a light wrinkle across her brow from stress, but otherwise her pale skin was relatively smooth. Her pale blue eyes glittered in the pale light. She brushed away the annoying tears that had sprouted in the corners of her eyes and started on again. Not letting go of the roses, she used her breathy voice to say, “Hello James,� she raised her eyes boldly to the taunting text on his tombstone as she said this, “I met your son yesterday. The one you never got to know. He’s really sweet. Already has that sad look in his eyes that you two wore so long ago. When it looks like you know too much and you got too old too quickly. He’s seventeen now you know. It was his birthday yesterday,� Here she paused again, overcome with the words and with no particular way to say them. She plucked a petal off of one of the roses and rubbed it absentmindedly in her fingers. It cracked and bent under her touch, its sweet smelling oil clinging to her fingers. She dropped the shattered petal after a moment and wiped the sticky liquid on the grass. She sniffed her fingers and smiled with the memory of it. She had been seventeen too once, and James and Lily had not been dead.

“I told him about you guys. All I ever knew. I even told him about, well, us, James.�

She paused again and sniffed the rosy perfume of the flowers to remind her of the first time she had a conversation with James Potter.


“A pretty flower for a pretty lady?� he had asked in that genuine voice of his. The voice broke through her lazy sleep to interrupt one of many dreams. At first she ignored him thinking he was talking to Lily. He had always fancied Lily. Not Norah. He had never noticed Lily’s best friend, the quiet blue-eyed girl who hid behind her books and pens. It was only when he had shoved the bright red rose in her face that she remembered that Lily had gone home for Christmas break. She took the fragile thing and brushed the sleep from her eyes. “Morning sleepy head!� James said joyously as the girl sat up.

“How did you get up here?� she asked, “This is the girls’ dormitory.� She looked up into his deep brown eyes with curiosity. However, it was far too early for curiosity, she decided, and rolled back into bed. She heard his foot tapping in frustration and was vaguely reminded of her mother. That woman had spent many hours of her life forcing Norah out of bed. If this amateur thought he had any idea what he was doing, he was highly mistaken. Norah pinned her shirt down nonetheless. She had seen what had happened to an unprepared Snape in their fifth year. Better safe than sorry. Another idea came to her and she grabbed her pillow.

Wham! She looked in fury at James who, while she had been planning her strategy, had taken the moment to grab the pillow from the next bed over. Grabbing her wand, she banished the pillow right at James’s head. After a several minutes of similar antics the two thoroughly feather-covered teens collapsed on Norah’s bunk in exhaustion. James laughed, openly, and Norah found herself joining in. When the laughter faded silence reigned supreme, but it was a comfortable silence. A welcomed moment of peace.

“Confess, James, why did you come up here? And don’t lie to me,� she asked after the moment passed. He looked over at her for a moment and she found her heart beating faster. She held her breath in anticipation, though she couldn’t explain why.

“You want the truth?� he muttered, “I am alone on Christmas this year, and I thought, ‘why not make a new friend this year’ and, well. Let’s just say the Slytherin’s aren’t looking too friendly, and after our match with Ravenclaw, they are after my liver.� Norah sat up with a start, a look of false astonishment plastered on her face.

“James Potter? Alone on Christmas? However did those events occur?� She tried hard to keep the edge of disappointment from her voice, but the boy was too wrapped up in himself to notice. He had already launched into the glorious epic of how his friends had abandoned him. Norah just watched him in astonishment. She thought to herself, ‘It’s no wonder that Lily doesn’t like him.’ But then she was overcome with an intense desire—name it a lack of reason or lust, she sure did not know—to kiss those sweetly moving lips. And as some god’s cruel joke, she did kiss him.

She leaned in quickly, before her brain could give a cry of protest. His honest eyes had looked up at her and she couldn’t take it anymore. “You need to shut up,� she said kindly and kissed his awestruck lips. After a moment or so, she pulled back a little and let him give a reply. He was still lying there, and she was getting nervous. Thoughts of doubt raced through her head as she waited for his response.

He sat up quite slowly (to Norah it took him eternity), and he brought himself level with her. “Don’t stop,� he said quietly, his eyes never once leaving hers, “But put your back into it will you?�

Norah smiled as he leaned in, her first kiss forever imprisoned in her head. And she let him kiss her.

“You never knew he was my first, did you Lily?� Norah paused, looking at the tombstone of her best friend, “We kept it a secret, because he still loved you. Maybe not in the same way as he once had, but that love for you was still there. And I went along with it because I didn’t want the gossip that was bound to come from the other girls who wanted James. He was the Quidditch captain after all. How we managed to keep a secret like that I’ll never know. When we graduated from Hogwarts, we decided to end it. He was going to be an Auror, and I was going to be a Healer. We just didn’t want to think about it anymore.�

She pulled one of the roses from the bundle, pricking a finger in the process. She watched the droplet of blood bubble and swell for a moment before wiping it on the grass.

“I’m not a Healer anymore. I couldn’t take all the people dying. I couldn’t do anything. I just stood there, helpless. And when you guys died, I realised that every single person I was watching had a story like yours, and there stories were ending too,� Norah paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

“Lily, do you remember that night when you were a few months along? James was off somewhere, doing something for someone and it was just you and I.�

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Norah. This is the third time this week he’s had to go off and do something for the Order. And when he gets back, he can’t tell me where he’s been or who he’s been with. If a war weren’t going on right now, I’d think he was having an affair,� the woman was hysterical, and the elevated hormone level was not calming her down at all.But rather than getting flustered along with her, Norah pulled out an extremely large bar of chocolate and began to melt it on the stove. She was only half listening to Lily’s rant: she had been listening for nearly an hour already. No, she was focused on the hot chocolate she had started to make, her mother’s old recipe.

She poured a touch of milk into the melted chocolate, but not too much, to cream it up a little. A pinch or two of sugar later, she realised that Lily had stopped talking and was watching her absentmindedly. She looked back down at the chocolate and added a touch of chilli pepper to it, for an added zing. Gracefully, she poured it into two mugs and handed one to Lily, putting the pan on one of the cool burners. She lifted her cocoa to her lips and smiled sweetly. “Drink, it’ll make you feel better,� she assured. Lily did so and looked at her in surprise.

“This is marvellous, you should start a business!� she announced. Norah looked away shyly.

“It was my mother’s recipe. Rather, it was her mother’s recipe. My grandmother told her the recipe when she was fourteen, for being such a good girl on the passage to Britain before the Second World War. Somehow, they knew the Soviet Union was ending, and they wanted to get out before anything happened to my grandpa. She had loved her mother’s chocolate and it killed her to make even the slightest change in the recipe. But they hadn’t had chilli pepper in Russia and she knew it tasted even better with it,� Norah smiled at the chocolate, reliving the memories of how it had came to be, “It was one of my favourite things growing up, but she only made it for me when I was very sad. She always told me that fairies had left it on the front step for me, because they had known I was sad.�

“That’s beautiful,� said Lily.

“You’ll make a wonderful mother someday,� she added and the two women drank their hot chocolate in a peaceful silence until James rushed in, offering profuse apologies and happy kisses. Norah watched as a look of relief flooded Lily’s face and she smiled, knowing the chocolate would make it all better. She washed her mug out and set it softly in the sink. She made her goodbyes and walked out, leaving the couple alone.

The woman finally set down the roses, even the one she had thought to keep. “I started up that business Lily, and it’s not just for wizards. I let in Muggles and wizards alike. It’s here, in Godric’s Hollow, and I can’t say business is booming, but it pays the bills. Harry came in for a hot chocolate yesterday, and I thought it was James walking through the door,� Norah stopped, overcome with everything she had ever held in. She swiped at tears the tears that had started up again, but they weren’t stopping anymore.

“You two should be the ones here for him. Not me. Not Remus. You. It’s not fair that he had to grow up without ever knowing you. That everything he has ever learned about his parents was from me or Sirius or Remus. He should have found out from you. Not even my hot chocolate could make that better.�

Fighting back the flood of tears, she looked at the tombstone again, “I have a daughter now, too. She’s starting her fourth year at Hogwarts in a month. I hope she grows up to be half the person your son is Lily. I always forget: you never got to know him either.�

And with these closing words, Norah stood up and brushed herself off. She had said her goodbyes. After fifteen years, nine months, she finally said goodbye.

Norah had been making hot chocolate that brisk Halloween. The children in strange costumes had long since stopped begging for treats and it was nearly midnight. She had been making hot chocolate to bring across the street when she heard it: the grotesque explosion that rippled through the night. When that crippling sound hit her ears, she dropped the glass pot and watched as it fell through the air, shattering at her feet.

Ignoring the glass threatening to poke through her shoes and bite her, she had run outside to see no dark mark hovering high above the rooftops. She allowed herself the slightest bit of hope, but for some reason, she knew it was false.

Without regard to the statute of secrecy, she blasted the door off its hinges and rushed inside. A cry of anguish escaped her lips when she saw James—broken on the ground, a trickle of blood on his cheek. She didn’t even stop to see if he was dead: she knew by the empty look in his eyes that no life lived in that body. She stepped over him and rushed up the stairs.

As she walked down the hall to the nursery, she knew it was over. She did not even need to see Lily’s lifeless body to know that she was dead. The scorched wood of the door told her all she needed to know. She leaned against the doorway and began to cry. She slid to the floor, but rose again just as quickly. She had nearly forgotten Harry. She picked up the baby from his crib and held his limp body in her arms. She looked at his face and saw the lightning bolt scar lanced on his head. She could not help but think how cruel the world must be to take a child like this. She smelled something ripe in his diaper and decided to change it, for a baby did not deserve to rest eternally in its own poop.

As she was fastening the new diaper, though, she saw him do something strange. Kick his legs. She pressed her ear to his chest and heard the thump-thump-thump of a heart eager to live. Tears falling again, she pressed him to her chest and ran across the street to tell Dumbledore of the horrible deeds that had transpired.

As Norah walked home, she stopped by the empty lot that had once been the Potter house. A boy mowed the grass once a week, but no one had had the heart rebuild the comfortable looking home that had once stood on the hill. Norah pulled out her wand and looked around to make sure no one was watching.

Seeing no one, she cast her wand to the lawn, charming up a garden that had not been seen since Eden. And at the entrance, she made an archway of roses and lilies.