"Harry, I want you to sort through the things here that you want to take home with you," I say to Harry early on Friday morning as we prepare to leave the school. It has been an hour since the other students have left by train to their homes for Christmas, and it is due time that we get on our way as well.

"To go where?" Harry asks, curious.

"To our new home, silly," I say with a small smile.

"You found us somewhere?" he says, aghast.

"Yes. I just sealed the deal a week ago. A little flat, just the two of us."

"Dad, where is it?"

"It isn't far from Grandma's. You'll be able to visit her whenever you like. Godric's Hollow isn't too large, and her cottage is only a little ways out of the town, so you will be able to walk."

"Godric's Hollow? Really?" Harry asks, excited. "Grandma didn't tell me where her new house was. Does this mean we're going to bring Mum flowers more often? And can I have friends over for the summer now?"

"Yes Godric's Hollow, yes I am serious, yes we will if you would like to come with me," I say, having trouble keeping up with all of his questions. "And finally, yes you may have friends to stay. But they have to swear to keep it a secret that I'm not a vampire after all."

"Dad," Harry says with a laugh, shooting me a grin over his shoulder as he runs into what was his bedroom in my quarters before he started school. He returns with a few boxes of things, most of which had long resided at Spinner's End before they were relocated here temporarily.

"Ready?" I say after waving my wand to send all of our things there by magic.

"Yes!" Harry tells me, and so I hand him the pot of floo powder, and I tell him the address. He grins, and before I know it he vanishes in a puff of smoke and fire.

I'll never quite get used to that.

I grab a handful myself and toss the powder into the fire. I step into the emerald flames, and speak.

"Number three, Cherry Road," I say, and when I arrive in the small sitting room Harry is standing, covered in soot and spinning in circles, with his arms out.

He looks so terribly funny I do not scold him for getting soot on the carpet. We leave the boxes for later, and we walk through town and down the narrow, snow covered country lane to visit my mother. She's happy to see us, and gives Harry a huge hug.

"Severus," Mum says when she finally releases him so he can take a gasp of air. "Oh I'm so glad to see you!"

"Glad to see you too, Mum," I say, giving her a hug.

"Now come into the kitchen, won't you two? I need a hand icing cookies for Christmas. You can fight over who gets to lick the spoon."

I chuckle and follow her in, where, with laughing eyes cast at me she gives Harry the mixing spoon from the bowl of icing to lick. She then moves to take the cooled cookies off the pan.

I watch the two of them as Harry tells her all about his first half of the year. Harry adds sprinkles to the cookies while she ices them, and once in a while he dips his finger in the frosting, only to have his hand swatted away. It's very fun to watch, and my half of the cookies end up looking rather sloppy because I'm paying more attention to my family than my icing duties. Nobody minds of course, least of all me, for this is exactly why I chose to live here in Godric's Hollow. We're all together here. Past, present, future.

The days go by like this until Christmas Eve arrives, my letters to Ben returning with speedy replies, and finally the promise to visit the day after Christmas for a game of cards and a tour of our new flat.

Godric's Hollow is so full of life during this time that it makes it hard to remember what happened here so long ago, and that I am grateful for. Harry doesn't seem to think about the past much at all, and instead has fallen in love with other things here, which I am glad for. The connection to Lily is what I like about this place, and I worried he would only think of what happened here long ago. I at least have other memories of Godric's Hollow, for while Lily and I never lived here together we used to visit my elderly Grandmother Prince, who had lived in the old part of Godric's Hollow. Before she died we visited her often, staying for a few days sometimes, just as I used to when I was a child during the summer. She was the only Gryffindor in the Prince line, and she adored Lily. Maybe that's why Lily decided to take James Potter's offer to allow her to hide here at his home. This place is full of us, full of memories and beautiful days spent with nothing to do but talk to each other. It is for that reason, all of the memories, that I am drawn to the streets of Godric's Hollow, and when Christmas Eve comes I find myself upon them, far from the door of my mother's home, where Harry is sitting and drinking hot chocolate with her, eagerly awaiting Christmas tomorrow.

I walk purposefully, my destination not far but my wishes to remain long making themselves heard. It will be some time before I return there to the cottage to sleep, having promised Harry we would stay the night in the country, because he wants to spend every second of Christmas with Grandma. Even though our new home is not far from hers, and we could get there in good time in the morning, it's an idea we both like. After all, family time is something I appreciate more and more, and my mother is the only family we have left besides each other.

The streets are lined with thick, deep heaps of snow. The flakes drift down softly upon the world below, and the frosted windows gleam with light, the occasional glimpse of families gathered behind sparkling windows. It is like a picture, still and quiet. There is no wind, and my crunching footsteps are the only sound in a silent world. I pass the church. Lily rests in the graveyard there, a bundle of roses from me upon it. It's the only way I can bring her flowers now, and yet, it doesn't hurt quite the same as it used to. Right now I do not turn into the graveyard, instead opting to go forward, for what I seek lies ahead.

At last I find what I am looking for, bathed in the soft, warm glow of street lamps, the flakes of snow swirling brightly around it as they fall from the sky. There it is, the obelisk reaching up into the night, a war memorial that has stood there an age. I feel my stomach twisting inside, wondering what muggle names sit upon it, and from which wars. But as a Wizard it does not last long for my vision, because to I, a man of magical blood, it means something else too. I see the war memorial only from a distance, for as I approach the obelisk it melts into something new. I take a deep breath. There she is, my Lily, standing still and smiling, white snow gathered in her hair and baby Harry bundled in her arms. She stands there with a soft smile - just another war memorial to the muggles that live here. But I know better.

"Happy Christmas Eve, love," I mutter under my breath as I drink in her image.

I fall silent, the church bells striking ten times, and like a man in a dream I stare into the face of all that I lost, and yet all I gained. Lily dared to love me even though she knew it was likely she would lose me. First I was a spy - a man married to risk. And then I was a soldier. Lily's soldier, married to her, but also engaged to a destiny that could very well end my life. And when she was gone I became married to Death herself, and oh how easy it would have been to fall into her embrace.

Some days I wonder how it is I made it through it all, half of me in the grave after Lily's death. The only answer I can ever come up with is that I wasn't meant to die. I have cheated death over and over, and there are times when it should have had me. Countless times from my spying days, my fighting days, and the day I reached my hands out for those of Death. And yet Death did not take them as I wanted back then.

Maybe it's luck. Maybe it's chance. Remembering those days in the war when the best of us fell and those less deserving walked free, much of the time I think it is. But on nights like tonight, thinking of Harry and my mother sitting back at her cottage, and the letter from Ben saying he's coming to visit soon, I start to think that maybe there were things I had yet to finish.

There have been times when I've lost just about everything, where it would have made more sense not to go on. Yet, I did anyway, and it is only now, remembering all I have lost as I breathe in the brisk night air and feel the chill winter night in my bones, that I realize the bravest thing I ever did was go on.

And that's something I can truly be proud of.