Author's Note:

Hello there! It's been almost seven years exactly since I began this story, and about six since I last updated it. Hard to believe I was just 16 when I started out with Gracie and Sirius and the Marauders. Very likely, since then, you don't even remember all the details to the story! But if you are reading this final update, I'd just like to say thank you. It's a silly little story that I loved to death while I was working on it, and one that I've thought of for years since. I don't know why - I guess maybe I never felt satisfied with leaving it unfinished. So, because of that, I decided that I needed to give it a proper ending. It's not quite the one I had envisioned, as I'm finishing it with one last chapter ("The Final Epilogue" - meaning, I FINALLY finished the story!) and 16 year old me might not be so happy with how quickly I've wrapped it up here, but 23 year old Anna is quite pleased with it. If you've stuck around on this site since then and want to revisit this old tale, I'd love for you to see how things have finally ended. It's a bittersweet story, there's no getting around that, but I hope I've managed to do it some justice.

Enjoy! And so much love to you all.

-Anna

The Final Epilogue

Time's a funny thing, you see. It has a way of erasing all the tiny details that, in the moment, seem to take precedence over our lives – and they're the silly things, like taking twenty extra minutes in the morning to simply part your hair, or worrying yourself sick the night before a first date that goes nowhere, or rushing through the doors at work swearing up and down that your life is over when in reality you're only two minutes late.

Funny, yes, how the passing of time makes all those little things slide away. How afterwards, you remember nothing but the big, beautiful picture of it all: the first words, the pang of the overwhelming emotions, the love and the dismay and the hoping and the longing.

In retrospect, I think time makes idealistic, longing fools of us all.

I take a long glance around me, my hands wrought together tightly in my lap. The room is dark aside from the few rays of light crawling through the window. It's gotten late, and I have waited here for what feels like forever.

It's quiet anguish, staring at these two wooden doors in silence, waiting for them to open.

Remus will return soon. My gaze wanders to the bookshelf by the window and a photograph catches my eye. There's a flash of red hair that disappears between a twirl of white. I walk over to it and let my fingers graze the frame.

It's Lily and James on their wedding day, laughing and spinning. I can see Sirius in the back, a glimpse of what I know is Peter's hand, and then me – throwing white flower petals over their heads. Remus had taken the photo on his Polaroid. He'd wanted to retake it because he had cropped Peter out by accident, but by then he was out of film, and the petals were already scattered across the pavement.

The memory burns in my chest as I think of it. I close my eyes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The war ended in 1981, but not before James and Lily were married. It was a quick whirlwind of a thing, their engagement, and it came not without its conflicts.

James argued that he wanted a huge wedding party, while Lily, all but sensible, wanted something small and simple. Of course, James secretly agreed, for fear of the war and the stress of planning such a huge extravaganza, but he fought tooth and nail for that big wedding because—he told Sirius this—he felt Lily deserved it.

In a way, I think he knew that the war guaranteed none of us long, happy lives in which we could experience such lavish celebrations, but he wanted to have one while he could, as regular people do.

They had a small wedding in the end, of course. It took place in a beautiful chapel where the sunlight streamed in on the couple as they said their vows.

I stood across from Sirius behind the altar with the bridesmaids. He caught my eye and smiled at me. I remember thinking that nothing would make me happier than having a moment just like this for him and myself.

Later that night, after we'd grown breathless from too much dancing, Sirius and I wandered into the garden behind the chapel, where he kissed me sweetly.

"We'll have our day, someday," he whispered.

I smiled at him. "I know." I felt so sure of it, too.

. . .

Many months later, Harry was born. He came not long after the wedding, and though it took both James and Lily by much surprise, they couldn't have been happier. You could just see it on their faces. He was their greatest love, and after Harry was born, I couldn't imagine a time where he hadn't existed in our lives.

I watched him smile, and grow, and learn to walk, and babble his first words. Somewhere in a trunk under a pile of forgotten things is a photograph of Sirius holding Harry's little hand and Sirius screaming in victory as Harry wobbled out what Sirius believed were Harry's first steps.

Nobody would say anything to the contrary, until a few minutes later Peter recalled, "But Harry took his first steps last week, didn't he?"

You should have seen the look on Lily's face, one minute smiling and the next, wide-eyed and frozen. James threw a pillow right at Peter's face, and Remus burst out laughing. Sirius pouted for only a moment before Harry slipped right on his butt and burst into loud tears.

"I got it, I got it!" he exclaimed, all disappointment gone from his face, godfather mode activated. He scooped Harry up into his arms and rushed off to the next room. "It's okay, buddy, shhh, shhh. You're okay, just a little fright is all."

God, to think – what wonderful, loving parents James and Lily were. What an amazing godfather Sirius was. Of course, nothing could compete with the love of a parent, but Sirius's love for James and Lily spilled so naturally over into his love for little Harry. It was my favorite thing, just watching Sirius with the lot of them, hopeful and happy and bright.

. . .

At the beginning of October in 1981, I woke Sirius up one night in a panic. I'd felt suspicious for a week that I might have been pregnant and that night I woke up feeling absolutely certain of it.

We both panicked for what felt like ages before we dressed ourselves and made it to a muggle drugstore to buy a test.

"What are we hoping for?" he asked me, bag in hand, as we walked down the street back to our flat. "Are we hoping you're right?"

"Oh, no," I said, hurriedly, knots in my stomach, "I don't know what we would do with a baby, do you?"

"Merlin, no… I was only worried you'd say otherwise," Sirius admitted. "Not that I wouldn't be happy, of course, should it happen that way, but I wouldn't feel right. Not until after the war's ended."

"No, I imagine we'd be so anxious all the time…" I trailed off momentarily. "Like James and Lily must feel for Harry."

Sirius's face grew solemn. "Yeah, particularly now, what with everything going on."

When we made it home, we both sat in silence for a long while. I was sure Sirius was thinking of the Potters, living in hiding. I hadn't quite stopped thinking of it myself.

"If it ends up that we do, you know, have a baby… do you think we would be happy?" I asked him quietly.

"Yes," he said, after the shortest moment of hesitation. He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into his chest, where I curled up against him. "No matter what happens, we'll find a way to be happy."

I sighed. "I hate how life feels like it's all but stopped. Like we're just waiting and waiting and we never know when we'll be able to stop waiting."

"D'you mean about getting married?"

I didn't answer. Not right away. I wasn't sure what I meant.

"I'm sorry, love," Sirius whispered into my hair. He kissed my forehead. "How about we focus on what we can figure out now?"

"Better get around to that, I guess." I smiled, half-hearted, and took the test to the restroom with shaking hands. I came back a few minutes later with a straight face.

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked.

"Oh, nothing," I said, coming back to his side. "It's negative. No baby. We're fine. I'm sorry if I made a bigger deal of that than I should have."

"Oh, love, don't apologize," Sirius said. "Are you sad? Come on, look at me. You look like you're about to cry."

And I did, then, shaking with sobs I hadn't realized I'd been holding since I'd woken him up that night. I didn't even know if I wanted a baby, but I knew that it had felt like a beginning for us, and now it was as if it'd slipped away. Like we'd never again have the chance.

. . .

The next moment in our history comes well recorded now, many newspaper articles and books and tall-tales that speak of that night's happenings in much better detail than I ever could.

It was Halloween, and so very dark outside, much darker than most nights seemed to be. I woke to a knock on the door and saw that Sirius had gone. He did that on some nights, to clear his mind, to pay James or Remus or Peter a visit, to get a drink down at the pub. I didn't like it much, but I understood to some extent, so I didn't often say anything about it.

I walked to the door, thinking it must be a drunk Sirius, having forgotten his keys and wand. But when I opened the door, it was Dumbledore.

He came inside and declined my invitation for tea, sitting me down in the living room instead. He started off by asking me where Sirius was, and when I responded that I wasn't sure, he delivered the news. Voldemort was gone. Harry was alive. Lily and James were dead.

The funniest thing is, I don't really remember what happened after that. The details of that night have faded in my memory, grief being the only thing that lingers in its place. I remember Dumbledore doing his best to placate me, telling me he would visit Remus and Peter to tell them of what had happened. He didn't ask me where Sirius was again, and he was too compassionate of a man to continue to press me about it. The Ministry officials would do that later – until they found Sirius, of course, wild and seemingly deranged in the streets of Godric's Hollow.

. . .

At the funeral, I sat by Remus, but we exchanged few words. I didn't know what words could encompass the enormity of our losses: James, Lily, Harry, Peter… Sirius. All in one night.

Harry should have been there. But he wasn't – couldn't be – only because Lily's sister didn't think it important enough to come. How truly cruel it was, that Harry's parents were murdered and then Harry was ripped away from everyone else who had ever loved him. I did not know much about Petunia, but I hoped she could grow to love him, too.

Dumbledore told us, a month after Lily and James's passing, that neither Remus nor I could visit Harry. He would have to live as a muggle until he went to school.

My heart ached. Every waking moment I spent after their deaths, I hurt. Remus and I spent many years growing apart with little contact between us, although not for lack of trying. But he struggled in such a way that I could not help him. James, Sirius and Peter had always been there for Remus on full moons, and now that they were gone, his transformations defeated him, weakened him, isolated him. I didn't know how to help him, and he wouldn't have let me, anyway. We went many years without a word to each other.

For years I feel as if I lived in a walking nightmare: surrounded by the memory of days past, haunted by broken hopes, tortured by confusion and doubt.

I knew Sirius had been James and Lily's Secret Keeper, and I knew that only he would have had the power to reveal their hiding place to Voldemort. Everyone knew this. It was displayed on the front page of the Prophet, the story of the heartless, twisted man who had betrayed his best friends. My mind kept wandering back to all the times he'd left in the middle of the night and I hadn't asked him where he'd been. God – how I wanted it to not be true. But I knew better than to be naïve.

I put all my photos away – photos of Sirius, photos of Lily and James, even photos of Remus and Peter. I couldn't bear to look at them. I tried not to read the Prophet, even in passing on the streets. The paper seemed to be obsessed with the story, and everyday their faces were there: the smiling faces of my friends, the crazed face of Sirius in Azkaban.

I tried so hard to forget.

. . .

For a while, I moved back to America and stayed with my parents. I worked a few jobs in the American papers and wrote stories about small crimes and daily life in the New England area. It was boring, somewhat, but easy, and for some period of time, gave me purpose.

It took me many years to date – I realized later that at 26, I'd only ever kissed two people in my life. Dating was hard, and awkward, and a little messy. I had grown so closed off that dating seriously seemed to have little meaning. How could I ever share my past with someone when I couldn't bear to even think of it?

I found myself drifting from place to place. I wandered to cities across America, visited a few of the wizarding schools, got my degree at a muggle university in Boston.

After so many years of escaping what had happened… I finally got to a place where I felt content.

Then, one November, I got a letter from Remus.

My dear friend Gracie,

I hope this letter finds you well, and I hope to hear that you are finding lots of happiness with life in America. I realize it's been a few years since we've spoken, and I regret us falling out of touch immensely. However, and I apologize if this seems somewhat abrupt, something has happened to which I feel you ought to know.

This last September, I was hired as a teacher of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. Before that, I had been living on the streets, and had not a hope left until Dumbledore discovered me. He offered me a job at Hogwarts and I have been here graciously ever since.

I don't know if you've heard the news about Sirius's escape from Azkaban—I'm not sure how quickly news travels in the magical community in America. However, there have been various reports of a black dog wandering through England, a dog that allegedly takes the shape of a man. They believe this to be Sirius Black, and that he is on his way to Hogwarts to find Harry.

I don't know what to believe, or what to feel. I dread what might happen if he finds his way to the school. It seems very surreal that he should be back. I don't know what he'll do. After all, it's like we never really knew him to begin with – after all those years – who is to say what he will or won't do?

Anyway, I felt you ought to know. I'm sorry to bring you such disturbing news. I don't know that he would travel to America, or even know to find you there, but I think it's best that you are aware, just in case. We know in the least that he tends to be quite unpredictable.

My best wishes to you, and I shall keep you updated on the matter, should there be any more news.

Warm regards,

Remus Lupin

. . .

Months passed after that. I asked Remus if he felt I should return to the Ministry to help in tracking Sirius down, but Remus insisted that I stay out of it if I could. I tried to put it out of my mind, sure that justice would find its own way, but I couldn't stop thinking about him. In my sleep, he always came – a nightmarish, gauntly version of the Sirius I knew, an image that sent me jolting awake every time it arrived in my dreams.

It wasn't long until I received a final letter from Remus, one bearing news that he had met Sirius face to face, that he had heard the real story, that they had been wrong. His letter ended with: "Come as soon as you can."

It took me no more than an instant to pack up my things and leave for Hogwarts. My heart beat so fast as I stepped onto the platform at King's Station, where Remus met me. My old, dear friend – thin, graying, and so tired looking now – wrapped me in a hug that warmed me to my heart. We took the train into Hogwarts, and he told me everything that had happened. My head swirled, unable to make sense of it all, until we made it into Hogwarts.

Remus made me a cup of tea in his office, where I noticed he had begun to pack his things.

"Leaving so soon, Professor?" I asked.

"Seems so," he admitted, with a sad smile. "Better things will come."

"Where is he now?" My gaze drifted to the window. "He's on the run, you said?"

"Sirius?"

I nodded.

"Yes. Harry and his friends helped him to escape to safety. It was quite brilliant."

My eyes brimmed with tears. "Ah, yes. So you taught him? Harry?"

"I did," Remus said. "He's a terrific young man. Truly like his parents in every way."

I rubbed my eyes on my sleeve. "Well then. Peter. How will we find him?"

"I don't know," Remus sighed. "Our only hope is to straighten out Sirius's story, and hope to provide him with some evidence to prove his innocence. But there's no way to know where Peter is now, truly."

"And Sirius?" I said. "Will we be able to find him?"

"You want to see him?"

Slowly, I nodded. "I feel that I have to see him. As hard as I know it will be. I've thought so terribly of him for years. I felt so betrayed… and now, to know that he was wrongfully imprisoned? That he's suffered just as we have?" At that point, I began to sob, and Remus, tearful himself, wrapped his arms around me.

"I've felt the same," he told me.

"I can't wrap my mind around it. I hated him for so long. I was so angry with him. And yet I missed him so much. I missed all of you – and I blamed him for it, I blamed him for all of it. I don't know how to stop hating him. I've hated him for twelve years."

Remus rested his chin on the top of my head. I could feel him breathe gently. "I imagine you'll feel very different when you see him."

My heart hadn't stopped pounding since I'd stepped off the station – and at that, it felt as if it might burst out of my chest.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I hear steps outside the door, and I'm pulled back into the present, in the empty room with the photograph of my sweet friends. I turn from the shelf and look at the door just as it opens.

"Grace?" I hear Remus's voice. He steps into his living room, steps out of his shoes. It's been two weeks since I've seen him last, until this morning, when he showed up at the cottage I've been renting, anxious to bring me here.

"Hi," I say suddenly, hands still knotted together.

"Well," Remus says, running a nervous hand through his hair, "it was an adventure getting him here, but with a little help, I've finally got him."

It takes a moment, as if there is some hesitation hanging in the air, but then Sirius emerges through the doorway, and my heart goes still.

For a second, he is twenty-two, youthful and handsome, the love of my young life, my best friend. And then, in the next, I see him as he is: his hair has grown long, his eyes are tired, his bones seem to poke through his skin. A shadow of the man I knew so, so long ago.

Sirius doesn't move – he seems almost as much in awe of me as I am of him. I move first, and walk towards him slowly, carefully. Without thinking, I take his face in my hands. He flinches at first, but then I feel his shoulders relax, and his eyes go soft.

"Gracie," he says quietly. And in that one word, I can hear so much – the apology, the aching, the longing, the sadness.

I smile, and then suddenly I'm crying, but a good kind. A kind that hurts, that mourns, that loves. "I'm so, so happy to see you," I say, and it's true, and I've never spoken anything truer.

I wrap my arms around him and bury my face into his neck. He hesitates for the shortest moment before wrapping his arms around my waist. He holds me tightly, and by then, we are both crying. I imagine it's the same kind of cry. Happy and sad.

. . .

We don't fall into step right away. It takes time. We are much older than the kids we were twelve years ago – we're scarred, and a little wounded, still.

But I feel much lighter now, almost happy. I see Remus a few times a week for dinner, and I get a job writing for the Prophet again. Sirius writes almost every other day, and Remus and I like to sit by the fire and read his letters together.

After a year of being back in England, my life starts to fall into place. There is a pattern, a routine. Remus and I see Sirius on occasion, but with his dodging the Ministry day in and day out, it's more seldom than I'd like. Still, things are pleasant, and Remus keeps me up to date on how Harry is doing. After a while, I meet Harry, and it is overwhelming to me to realize how much he is like James in every way. James and Lily would be so much in awe of him.

It starts to feel almost as if our lives are beginning all over again.

. . .

After more time, a year or so in passing, the Order starts itself back up again. Sirius officially comes out of hiding and lives in his parents' old home, after some much needed deep cleaning.

I come to meetings at the house and tend to linger once they're over and everyone's gone. I stay and clean – although Molly Weasley and her family have been a great help in seeing most of that is already done. Still, I enjoy the excuse to stay with Sirius. We cook, clean, and go through terrible, ugly old family heirlooms. He makes jokes with me and bickers with his mother's portrait in the hallway. She's not much fond of me, either.

"You know what you need?" I say to Sirius one day. "You need a tele."

"Like television?" Sirius says, puzzled. "That muggle thing you used to have at your house when we were kids?"

I laughed. "Yes, I still have one, in fact. They're lots of fun. You can sit around and do nothing but feel like you've lived a whole other life at the very same time."

"Wouldn't that be nice." He sighs, and kicks his feet up onto the coffee table that we are sitting around. "That reminds me… of when we came to your house. To pick you up for the train. Before seventh year."

I remember, but I don't say anything. I just smile at the floor.

"We'd only just learned how to apparate, and Lily insisted that she be the one to do it, but I insisted more, so she let me. Then we plopped right down in the middle of the living room and my foot slammed into your mum's nice glass vase."

"She scolded me and then I had to clean up all the glass," I recalled.

Sirius smiled, too. "We set fireworks off in the train on the way back to Hogwarts. D'you remember that?"

"I do," I say.

"I wish we'd had a whole other life, Gracie," Sirius says softly, so softly I almost feel as if I've misheard him. "I wish we could have had our own life. The way we wanted it to be."

I meet his eyes and feel myself become still. His words are so tender, and it brings back so much that I have repressed in the last decade. All the words that I've ever wanted to say rush to my throat, and I find that I don't know the right words to express those things.

Instead, I think of right now. The fire is burning in the fireplace, and from across the room I can feel the heat of it on my skin. The light flickers on his face, and I am struck by how handsome he is, still. He looks so much different than he did before the first War, but so much different than he looked when I saw him again at Remus's that day.

I search for words to fill the silence. I think of telling him I thought of him every day while he was in Azkaban. I think of telling him how much I regret hating him, of how much I regret letting my past dictate my present. I think of telling him how stuck I was – how lost I became. Of how I hated how much the hurt I felt controlled me. I think of telling him how sorry I am for ever doubting him. For leaving him alone. I think of telling him how, after everything, I love him still.

And I do. I really do.

But instead, I take his hands in mine. He looks surprised by this small gesture, but also seems to see that I am trying to speak, and so he waits, quietly.

"We can't change what's happened, Sirius," I say. "But our lives aren't over yet, and I have every intention of spending the rest of mine with you, if you'll let me."

He says nothing, still, but his face has changed – energized with something new, hopeful and surprised, happy. I feel glad that I have chosen the right words.

I let go of his hands, and pull him in towards me, kissing him on the mouth. He seems frozen for a moment, before I feel his arms wrap around me. He kisses me back, gently and sweet, and through kisses I try to tell him I love him without the words, a thousand times over.

No matter what may happen, I know then that I will love him throughout it – that I will use that to keep me strong, and I will never become the broken thing of a person I was when I ran away to escape the pain. And I fully intend to stay true to my word.

Sirius pulls away and lays his palm against my cheek, looking at me. I smile as tears come to my eyes. I see that he's crying, too, just a little.

I am so overcome with emotion that I tell him I love him, just like that, like fourteen years haven't passed since I said it last. He brings me back into his arms and says it back, over and over. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

He never lets me forget it for the rest of his life.