Disclaimer: Only own the story. JKR owns the characters.

The Letterbox: A Story About The Past
Seer M. Anno

"Good morning, my Lil."

Scorpius Malfoy embraced the redhead slightly. She's already like a sister to him, a sibling that he will never have on his own. Lily Potter Jr. lives together with him, together with his Mother Astoria Greengrass-Malfoy and the rest of the Potters.

"Morning, my Score," she smiled. She always smiles, Scorpius thought. Even when that day comes. The day when the rest of people who live here don't want to wake up.

The day The Potters and The Malfoys lost their beloved leaders.

The youngest Malfoy and the youngest Potter, who always wake up earlier than everyone else, even the sun, talk heart-to-heart about everything. Scorpius is her refuge; her shoulder to cry on; her everything. Even her mother Ginny, James and Al couldn't do that much to her.

They sat together and ate in silence. "So," Scorpius, the youngest Potions Master in Britain, started. "You're graduating from Hogwarts this year, eh?"

The seventeen year old girl nodded. "I will miss the Hufflepuffs."

"Me too, I do miss the Gryffindors. Same with Al in Slytherin and James in Ravenclaw. So, what next? What will you do after you left Hogwarts?"

"Me? I have no idea yet. Al asked me to take a Healer training, but I don't think that's my passion."

"And? You want to follow your mother as a reporter? Maybe James' footsteps, being a Quidditch star? Or an Auror like Al?" he sat straighter. A familiar Malfoy smirk came across his lips. "Or maybe mine in Potions?"

She laughed and shook her head. "No. Merlin knows I'm an idiot in Potions, I could fly if the doomsday passed, I hate the press, and I haven't any guts to be an Auror. Alright, maybe I'll give that Healer training a try, but I don't know…I just… just… I don't have any idea. Yet."

"That's fine," he answered. "You still have a year to pass, have fun a bit won't kill you. Wait a sec, you don't fly thatbad. James and Al are experts in that thing, and they had you fly with them since you can walk." Scorpius finished his meal and a house-elf cleaned it along with Lily's as they walked out.

"Well," Lily said as she stared at the rising sun. She had charmed her eyes so the sun ray didn't hurt her vision. Scorpius followed as usual. They sat on a little hill in the Malfoy Manor's backyard, near an Elder tree.

Near to the graves.

Lily tilted her head. "Score?"

"Yes, Lil?"

"What do you think about Defense Against Dark Arts?"

It was the blonde young man's turn to tilt his head. "As a job? Not bad. What do you want to do about it?"

"I want to teach. I don't know, I think I finally find my passion."

"Lily Luna Potter Jr.," Scorpius almost couldn't cover his amazement in the girl's determined tone. She never sounded that serious before, even this morning, when they ate together. "I'm really impressed. What makes you think like that? A minute ago you didn't have any passion."

She took a long breath and put a hard face. She won't answer, the young man thought. She always looked like that if she didn't want to answer a question.

Suddenly the Hufflepuff rose and offered her hand to him. "Do you know what day is tomorrow?"

He frowned, but finally remembered. He accepted Lily's hand and they walked towards the tree.

Albus Severus Potter peeked in his mother's room. She was writing again, he thought sadly. That will never change. Forever.

"Good morning, young Auror Potter. Albus Severus, if I am right?"

"Ah!" he almost jumped with that voice. Damn it, that old woman can always make him feel like a schoolboy. "Sorry, Astoria."

Astoria Malfoy, nee Greengrass, just smiled. Her usually cold face warmed at once. "That's fine. Well, let's not disturb of what your mother is doing, alright? How about a decent breakfast with me? You may bring James, too."

"I don't think he'd be happy if I woke him too early. He's a worst morning person I've ever known." Astoria just laughed softly as they walked towards the dining room. She took a seat across the young Auror.

"So, Auror Potter. Albus," she started. Albus looked up to the woman who's with them all the time. "if I could recall, you've been assigned to the Medowrain's case, have you not?"

"Ah, yes," he said, then started to tell Astoria about the case he had been assigned in enthusiastically. He loves his job, it has a thrill in every case he is assigned. Astoria nodded, asked questions, smiled, and laughed together with Albus.

"From your story, I have to believe that Barnaby Medowrain is a complete fool when it comes to poison people he hates. It's all pointing to him in an instant."

"You're right. With your son's help, it became clearer that he's the person behind it all."

"Scorpius helped you? That's a good thing. I wonder where he is now."

"He's with Lily again, I'm sure."

"Actually I'm certain that he's with her. Maybe discussing things and stuff."

"Yes, I think so."

Dear Harry,

Today is already nine years after your death. More like a disappearance, if you ask me.

Lily is a Hufflepuff, have I told you yet? James was a Ravenclaw, you know that of course, and Al was placed in Slytherin. Surprisingly, Malfoy's spoiled brat is in Gryffindor. Can you believe that, Harry?

Lily is going to graduate this year. She said that she hasn't any idea yet for her future. Al is an Auror and James plays in the Chudley Cannons. She was advised to take a Healer training, but she needed to think about it. I just retired from my job as a reporter, and I live here in the Manor.

Astoria was surprisingly nice to us. That bitch. I will never be nice to her. And that little brat, who looks like your 'lover' a lot, is attached to hip with Lily! Can you believe that?

Oh Harry, I miss you. If you didn't come with that disgusting lover of yours, you would still alive.

Love, Ginny

"Score?"

"Yes, Lil?"

"Do you ever revive person with a potion of yours?"

"Of course."

"What is that feel like? Rescuing people?"

"Well, you should ask Albus about that, he's an…"

"I ask you," she said in a fierce tone.

"Alright, alright. It feels… great. When you can rescue people from death, it feels that you're a hero, you help people. It's great."

"I see. That's why I want to teach. I want to help students. I want to help people."

"Yes, but Defense? You really need to study hard."

"Daddy ever said that 'bigger powers you have…'"

"'…bigger the responsibility you'll have, you'll bear'. Yes, Father said that too."

"I want to have that big power. Like Daddy. Even when it comes to the responsibilities, but it's the consequences."

Scorpius smiled at the redhead. "That's why you want to teach. You remembered your father's words."

Lily nodded. "Daddy took it from a Muggle movie he watched. Maybe he told your dad about it."

They looked up and saw the two tombstones. Harry and Draco. Potter and Malfoy. The two men who means a lot to the young man and woman who were sitting in front of the graves.

"Daddy always wanted to be a teacher."

"Father always wanted to be accepted."

"Excuse me?" Lily frowned.

"Father made many mistakes in the past. And after the war, he wanted people to accept him of what he was, not from his mistakes. That wasn't an easy thing to do, since he was in the wrong side and all, but someone who accepted him turned out to be…"

"My Daddy?"

"Yes. They were enemies at school. So, to say the wizarding world was surprised when your father and mine were dating was an understatement. Father got many death threats, Howlers, hate mails, and even poisonous things. But he didn't let your father go."

"Score," she asked, leaned to his strong arms. "Can you tell me more about them?"

He winced, but at last he managed a painful nod.

James Sirius Potter is a mischievous person, even in his early twenties. People call him the offspring of his uncles, his late Uncle Fred and the owner of the joke shop Uncle George. More people call him the next Marauder. With the names of the two Marauders, his own granddad James Potter and Sirius Black, his father's godfather, he was surely inherited their mischievous side. Maybe he's really like that. Having a serious family after his father's death made him feel different from his family. Al and Lily are nothing like him. Let alone the Malfoys he lives with.

He combed his red hair before he started to go downstairs. He stopped at his mom's room. It was empty. He used to sneak in for things he liked to take in his her room. An idea formed in his head. He needed a new, strong quill to sign the parchment his fans wanted him to sign. His was broken by the legendary Oliver Wood's son, Paul. Mom maybe had one, he thought, so I needn't to buy a new one in the Diagon Alley. The thing Harry had inherited his oldest son is his hatred to the media, to people who idolized him overly.

He sneaked in and made a way inside Ginny's room. He spotted a dark box on the desk. It was locked, but James was clever. And mischievous, remember that.

With several spells, the box was finally opened. A stack of letters flew out the box and scattered on the marble floor. James grew curious. He was born that way, though.

He picked up a letter. And stared.

All of those letters was written by Ginny, all has a Dear Harry…as the header. But it's impossible!, his mind screamed. He traced the letterbox with his hand. Words were formed there.

"Father was a good person."

"Of course he was. Daddy wouldn't be with him if he was cruel."

"Father told me to befriend Al. He said that he's a son of 'a good friend of Father's' and he's in a same age as me, so I obeyed. We become friends 'till now. I even get the chance to know his siblings better, like you and James."

"I'm glad to know you too, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy."

"Thank you, Lily. And then, your father still came to the Manor to meet with mine. They chat together and sometimes kissed. Mother was shocked at first, just like yours I assume, but finally she accepted it. She likes your father because he made mine happier."

"Yes, Mom was so shocked when she heard Daddy and your dad were dating before they got married. And sometimes she prevented him to go to the Manor, but Daddy insisted so she gave up."

"They were married, but Father can't stop his irreplaceable love to your father. He loved Mother and I, we both know that, but he loves him more than anything in this world. Father loved him because he was Harry Potter, not the Boy-Who-Lived and all stuffs like that. Father had to get married because the Malfoy magic told him to do so, and yours… well, I don't know, but your uncle Ron and his wife Hermione insisted of matchmaking him and your mother, so they were married as well."

"They were Daddy's best friend. Daddy knows that they were doing the best for him."

"I know that. So they were married, and then James was born. Father didn't really like your mother or James, because they look too much alike. But old habits die hard, he once said to me, he hated the Weasleys when he was at Hogwarts, so it's hard to vanish the feeling. But after that his own son, me, was born, and his hatred to people just gone with the wind. He changed it with love, his love to his new formed family, a father, a mother, and a son on their own."

"Where do you know all these?"

"Well," the blonde young man blushed, "Mother told me, Father told me, and sometimes I looked in their Pensive without they both knowing. But well, that makes me understand, right? And then Al was born two months later, and Father came to St. Mungos just when Al cried for the first time. I saw him hugged your father and congratulate him for Al's birth. Then he said that Al and I are destined to be friends. I could feel his happiness in the Pensive, although it didn't beat his happiness when I was born. It was like Al was his own child."

"And after that I was born, right?"

"Yes. You were born when Al and I were three years old and James was five. Father and yours weren't in a good state. My father was sick without any logical reason. Yours was in a case that makes him stayed away from your house. Mother and yours were so worried. Mother told me that Father couldn't last long; he almost died when I was four."

"Wow. Lucky him."

Scorpius gave her another painful nod. "It's because your father came. He didn't recognize Mother and me anymore, but he still realized that Harry Potter, his beloved, was there beside him. And he recovered. That's when Mother saw that their love was irreplaceable, even after marriages and children. That's when she didn't mind for my father to be with yours."

"I wish Mom is also like that. She kept calling the Malfoys with nicknames."

"People aren't same, Lily. And no wonder, Father called the Weasleys nicknames to, remember? But well, years passed and suddenly Father had a heart attack. His sickness before made him weaker. Sometimes I wonder that he was poisoned. And this time," he felt tears gathered in his eyes, "your father couldn't help him."

"Oh Merlin, Scorpius," Lily hugged the blonde young man, her voice hoarse with sadness. "I'm so sorry." Her tears were streaming down her cheeks, too.

"It's okay," he stroked the red hair on his chest, his voice small. He loves his father very much, even after twelve years of his death, he will still cry if someone mentions his death. "Your father was enraged when he found out that one of his lunatic fans was the one who killed Father, who poisoned him with a poison which will kill the drinker slowly some years after a great sickness. He sent Dennis Creevey to Azkaban in an instant."

"Creevey? Wait a minute, I think I know the name," Lily started to think. "Oh yes, Daddy ever told me that there was a guy named Colin Creevey who liked to took pictures of him. He…"

"…died in the last war against Voldemort. That's why the young Creevey was enraged. He ever had a big crush on your father, his brother died in protecting your father, and your father didn't even look for him and his family and instead took a Malfoy that he hated the most to be his lover. That was the thing that made him insane, I think. But he wasn't thatinsane left Azkaban, so he rot to death there."

"But, Score, revenge doesn't make your dad alive."

"It's not revenge," Scorpius said, his voice cold with pain and anger. He remembered Mother's tears, Mr. Harry Potter's cries, Al's sobs, Lily and James' sad faces. Only Ginny Weasley-Potter who didn't look so indignant. "It's justice. Creevey started all of this, and your father just wanted to finish him. You know Lily; your father gave a ring that Father gave to him, before they were married, to me. It was beautiful, and such a Slytherin colors. He said that Slytherin colors matched his eyes."

"I know that ring; I've seen it in your room once."

Scorpius just nodded. "After that, your father can't stand it. He began to write letters. He imagined that my father was still alive. Your mother told this to me."

"Before she…"

"I'm not finish. You interrupted too much, Lil. I got a dream. Father came to me and told me something was happened with your father. He didn't say much, like he used to be. 'Harry needs that ring. Give it back to him.' So I did. He nearly cried when he saw that ring."

Scorpius could hear his father's voice, begging him to give the ring back. He felt tears on his cheek again. Draco's voice was so sad. Lily wiped it away, but didn't say anything. She knew the rest of the sad story, but she prevented herself from stopping the young man.

"One day, your mother cheated to the one of the reporters. I know it from the Prophet, and also from your mother. Your father can't stand the pain of people he loved put him down, first Father and then your mother, and asked my father to come. He came. Your mother saw everything. She realized that it was too late for her to apologize. And the next day…" his voice turned flat. "Harry Potter was found dead next to Draco Malfoy's graveyard, exactly two years after the blonde's death."

Lily hugged the blonde tighter. "I know this was hard on us, but tomorrow will be ten years since Daddy's death, twelve years since Mr. Malfoy's death. We should be okay."

Scorpius hugged his best friend tighter. "We areokay."

"James," Astoria greeted the young man who was sitting on the couch. He nodded slowly. But suddenly he jumped out and hugged the woman. Startled and never used to touches, Astoria hugged back the Quidditch star. She grew more surprised when she realized that he was crying.

"James? What is it?"

"I found," James' voice was painful. "I found Mom's letters to Dad. She was longing for him, she was sorry for what had happened to him, she regretted all of those."

"The Letterbox, I assume?"

"How do you know?"

Astoria sighed. "When my father died, my mother wrote letters to him. She put the letters in the Letterbox, and the magic of it worked. When she asked him to come and take her, he came and my mother died the next day. Just like Harry and Draco."

"You know about that?"

"Of course. And Ginny experienced the same thing. She asked Harry to come, and he came, shockingly, with Draco, and they took her with them."

"Mom died last month," James croaked slightly. He looked outside the window. Lily and Scorpius were there, sat in front of the graves. Harry and Draco's, and a bit further than theirs, Ginny's. "But I don't feel her presence for ten years."

"Since your father died, she changed," Astoria explained. "She loves Harry so much until she despised Draco, Scorpius, and I. I know that she insulted me and Scorpius in the letters. I can't blame her. If the situations were reversed, I would hate you too."

"You know that too? Did you read her letters?"

"You don't need to read the letters to know about that, James. She had never been too nice to me and my son. But that's okay. Whatever happened, it's the past. I forgive her. But I will never forgive her for one thing."

"What is it?"

"She suffered her children. You, Al, and Lil, three of you need a Mother. I will never forgive her for that. She had wasted her years with her children in grief of Harry's death. I don't know if I had been enough Mother for you."

James hugged her tighter and kissed her cheek. The brunette woman winced. James smiled sadly. "You're right. I've never have a mother since Dad died. But all this time, I realized that I've found one. I love you, Astoria Malfoy. Mother."

Astoria cried together with the oldest Potter. "I've been considered you and your siblings as my children, James. I've been waiting to be called and considered as your Mother. I care about you. I love you, the three of you. I truly am."

The next day:
Ten years after Harry's death, twelve after Draco's, and a month after Ginny's

Albus put the flower last. Then he stood up and faced the three graves. A sad smile came on his lips.

"Father," he could hear Scorpius faint whisper when he put a flower on the soil of Draco Malfoy's grave. He swore that he saw faint tears in his eyes, but they all were now. Lily was crying in Astoria—Mother's—hug; in front of Ginny's grave.

"Dad," Al whispered as James embraced him from behind.

"I miss you. I miss all of you."

"I know that, Al. We all are. But do you know what Dad ever said to me when I was going to fly on the broom on my own and told him that I'm going to be a Quidditch star?"

"What is it?"

"He said, 'this is your destiny, you hold it, you changed it. I know you'll make it, you have to be strong whatever happens.'"

"We have to be strong."

"Yes, we have to be. For Dad, for Mr. Malfoy, and for Mom." They looked to the two women. Lily had stopped crying, but Mother still buried her in her hug. Albus felt his head spin with memories when Mom hugged his little sister in front of this graveyard, ten years ago. That was the last hug she had given her. And her other children, too.

"And for Mother," Scorpius said.

The middle-aged woman looked at them and forced a smile to her face. "Come here, you boys." She hugged all of them altogether, their feelings mixed into one. They were sad and grieving for the loss of their beloved ones, but they were happy because they got a new mother, a new protector, and Astoria was blissful for the Potters' acceptances.

Later that night, the ghost of Ginny Weasley-Potter appeared for the last time. She didn't 'write' as usual. She just smiled and waved her hand goodbye as Astoria buried the Letterbox near to her grave.

FIN.

Thanks for reading!

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