Here We Go Again

Epilogue Part One: The Lifeline

POV: Emily

"One, two, three—Ah, one, two, three!"

"Weasley is our king," a little, twinkling voice began singing with a high note; it mixed with laughter and muffled curse words circling the summer afternoon spent in the garden of Godric's Hollow. "He always lets the quaffle in! Weasley is our king!"

"Louder!" another voice encouraged.

"Weasley was born in a bin, he always lets the quaffle in! Weasley will make sure we win! Weasley is our king!"

"One more time!"

"No more times," I protested loudly from the back-door's frame. I crossed my arms over my chest as the people in the vivid garden who laughed suddenly disguised their amusement with coughs and those who were annoyed by the tasteless song continued to scowl in bitter resentment. (One of those angry people happened to be Ron, who looked especially aggravated because Draco and Blaise were smirking and laughing too loudly at it).

"James," I called my husband, and seemingly the director of the little tune, "you're going to make Louis explode from all the curse words he is holding in." I, then, pointed a finger at the blonde man sat rigid over his broomstick and turning ruby red as Freddie, Liam, and Lucas circled behind him in their own brooms laughing at Louis' expense. "He's going to hex you and no one is going to hold him back."

"Well he shouldn't have let the quaffle in!" defended James, which echoed agreeing comments from the audience of the little, impromptu quidditch match (there was a much louder noise of agreement from Louis' fiancee Coral). "I told him to keep playing Wizard's Chess with Grandad, but he wanted to play with us. It's not my fault he's rubbish at the game, is it? He's making a mockery of my mum's maiden name with his lack of basic quidditch skills."

Louis' left blonde brown began twitching with every word James kept dropping.

Unaware of this, or maybe perfectly aware just not threatened by it, James turned to his singer and said, "Come on, sweetheart, one more time. Loud and clear."

"Weasley is our—"

"Protego!" Right before Louis, who yanked Freddie's beaters bat, could swing it and repeatedly hit it upon James' head, a bespectacled man stood from his seat at the end of a large table to cast a shielding charm. Mister Harry Potter frowned at his oldest son.

"I know, I know," James grunted at his father before the man could even part his lips to scold him, "Stop teasing your cousin'. Blah, blah, blah. Got it," he said resentfully as if all his toys had been taken away from him.

Mister Potter then turned his bright, green eyes at the direction of James' little singer that was standing on a chair—a little girl with cascading, dark waves, big, doe-like emerald eyes, and rosy cheeks.

"And you, darling?" reprimanded my father-in-law. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Taking a moment to respond, as she looked at the sky, where James hovered in his broom and made funny faces at her, the four year-old girl said, "I'm not to help Daddy with his childish behavior."

"That's right, sweetheart. There is only room for one child in your family, and that is still occupied by James," said a voice that came from behind me. With a giant smile on my face, I turned to see silver eyes and pale, blonde hair on my tall best friend and his redheaded soul mate.

"Uncle Scor!" exclaimed the little girl with her angelic voice when she too spotted the couple behind me. "Auntie Rosie!"

"About bloody time, mate," grumbled Al from his seat beside his Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione. "Zabini and I have been outnumbered for hours! It's not fun being the only two Slytherins in a game against Gryffindors. We have no support from anyone in this damn house."

Which was very true, actually. It was the weekly Saturday get-together at Godric's Hollow with the family, and every single time the competition was dire. Draco and Blaise would try to join in and assist the other former Slytherins, but Ginny clearly decided long ago that the qudditch matches would only be played by the younger men. In turn, my poor Slytherin friends were the joke of the century.

"We must catch up in a bit, Em," said Rose hurriedly to me. She leaned in and kissed my left cheek in greeting, but her brown eyes were glittering at the direction of my daughter ahead. "But first, I need to go smother my goddaughter!"

With a final squeal at my direction, Scorpius and I watched Rose enter the garden and head directly to the little girl. My little girl: Ginevra Bliss Potter. My everything.

"Do you think she regrets putting off having kids?"

I turned to Scorpius after I saw my daughter launch herself onto her Auntie Rose and get twirled. I raised my eyebrow at my best friend. "Do you?"

"We're twenty, Emily," he replied as he too stared ahead into the garden, "I don't think it's time to have kids. I'm not saying it's a horrible thing," he corrected quickly, now looking at me with his profound, silver eyes, "motherhood suits you, and Bliss is a blessing to everyone in her life, but it's just not the time..."

"I was seventeen, I had her a month after Seventh Year was over, Scor—You can say it, James and I were too young. I knew that, but it happened anyway. Would it not have been a happy accident, then I definitely would have waited until much later in life."

Scorpius reached his right hand forward to cup the side of my face gently. He smiled carefully before saying, "Yet you're the happiest I've ever seen you. It's just different with Rose, you know? She has maternal instincts, that I'm perfectly aware of, but she's primarily ambitious, curious, and determined. Rose needs to live out her life, learn as much as she can, do as much as she can, before we decide to settle down."

"That's why you haven't chosen a wedding date, either?" I asked him. He didn't say anything, just lowered his hand from my face. "You can't make all the choices for her, Scor, as admirable as they are. You have been engaged for four years, choose a date already. And as for starting a family, just include her in your reasoning. Maybe you'll find a compromise."

Scorpius was silent for a moment longer, but then he smiled and nodded at me. "In the meantime your little creature keeps us busy."

"SPIDER! SPIDER!"

A loud scream echoed from the garden, and Scorpius and I turned our attention to it immediately. Ron hopped onto his chair, pale as a ghost due to his sudden fright.

"Is it on me? Is it on me?" Running away from her Auntie Rose, my daughter took cover with her grandfather. She held tightly onto him, skinny arms around his neck, as her great Uncle Ron shrieked in unison.

"Kill it, Granddad! Kill it!"

"I've got it," aided Rose as she pointed her wand at the grass. "It's okay. Dad, please, get down from your chair," she urged her redhead father as he shook his head in refusal. Draco and the rest of the people present laughed at the man; all except for Hermione, who rolled her eyes at the entire situation.

Scorpius ruffled my hair as he made his way out. However, before he could continue his path, he spun on his heels to face me once more and said, "By the way, congratulations! Rose told me the news this morning."

I frowned.

"Oi! What's this commotion, Bliss-Bug," called Scorpius as he approached the huddle. "You're supposed to be strong, fearless! It's expected, of course, since you're getting bigger every day, sweetheart."

Bliss grinned at her godfather with all the adoration I had for him as well. "I am strong!" she declared proudly. "I'm eating my vegetables just like Mummy says. Look, Uncle Scor! Look!" She pushed out her arms horizontally and then flexed both of them. Her skinny arms remained unchanged, but it definitely created sympathetic and amused calls of admiration from her relatives.

"Look at that, mate," said James from the sky as he'd been observing our daughter with equal dedication as I always did. He turned a sneer back to Louis' direction. "My Bliss is more muscular than you. Maybe we should buy her a toy broom and have her play Keeper for us. With her we'd surely had a chance to win, since you clearly can't master it."

"Fuck off, Potter!" growled Louis.

"Louis!" shrieked Mrs. Weasley at her grandson. The old woman didn't have to stand from her seat to threaten the twenty-one year-old man; with one, hard look she made all the players in the amateur quidditch game fly off in different directions.

These people were hectic, wild, and brave, but they were all that was good in the world. They were the happy ending to my tragic story beginning.

To the day, it has been four years since I lost my mind and attempted to end my life. The voices in my head were too loud, so unbearable. They consumed my thoughts every minute of every day; constantly reminding me of a devastating past that I couldn't change, and feeding me poison to infect the unpredictable future that waited ahead of me.

I just remember that I wanted to be okay, to be free. I tried my damn hardest to get rid of the sickening images in my head, but the more they plagued my nights and refused to leave. I could see every little detail of every moment that sent me spiraling down. I was haunted and tormented by death and guilt for so long that they became a part of me. They took residence inside of me and refused to vacate. Small soldiers marched in through the darkness in attempts to fight off all the bad that lived inside of me; they worked for years to pierce the unbreakable brick wall that I placed between reality and my memories.

Light came in the form of James Sirius Potter.

I knew he loved me since we were children, but I never had it in me to take his heart, the one he so foolishly kept in a glass jar wrapped with a bow and a tag with my name written on it, ready at my disposal whenever I chose to have it. I did want it—who wouldn't want to be loved as passionately and sincerely by James—but I knew the outcome beforehand. I knew that when I said yes to James, when I finally accepted to be with him, that it would destroy the sun in his sky.

Time and time again he dedicated his days to make me better. He knew that I was troubled, he knew I had demons that I couldn't escape, and he wanted to fight them off all by himself. He put on shiny armor, gripped his wand between his fingers, and charged in yelling spells that would slay every monster in my head. Every cut on my skin he healed, every bruise he caressed, every tear he kissed away...But it didn't help me.

I wanted to believe that through others I could fix everything inside of me that had been broken for years, but I was wrong. All that happened was that my growing hysteria caused me to detach myself from others, to lie to them, and fake every smile and warm embrace. All their affection, all their encouraging words, all their vows of friendship, all of James' whispered 'I love you's, only made me aware that I was disappointing them. When they saw that I was turning into dust they would realized I'd been lying to them all along, and I just couldn't take it.

That's when desperation took over and caused me to sink myself in the Black Lake with cut wrists.

I was wrong in thinking that everyone else around me had the power to save me. When I woke up after days of a comatose state, I had to take a long hard look at myself and realize that I couldn't keep running away from my problems; I couldn't keep letting those voices in my head win. And most importantly, I took responsibilty of my own life. I pulled out sturdy thread and a thick needle from the back of my drawer and went to work: one point at a time, one side of one wound at a time, I learned how to stitch myself back together again. It took time, day by day, a stumble and a rise, but I managed to find happiness in myself. A happiness that came from me and only me.

I put on the shiny armor, gripped my wand tightly between my fingers, and charged in yelling spells that slayed the monsters in my head.

"You look aggravated. Don't tell me James managed to piss you off, Em. If he did, I'll march right out there and give that boy a talking to."

I sat myself on the end chair of the kitchen table and blinked my eyes at the woman by the kitchen's countertop. She stopped her act of cutting carrots the muggle way, dropping her knife roughly against the cutting-board, to turn to me.

"It's not James," I told my mother-in-law with a smile, "I'm just a little tired at the moment. I needed to step away from the chaos outside."

Ginny eyed me suspiciously. "How bad is the quidditch game right now?"

"James taught Bliss a song that made Ron furious," I confessed, "but everyone else seems pretty entertained by it."

At the mention of her granddaughter, Mrs. Potter lost her parental scolding; instead, her freckled face lit up like the moon on a starry night.

I laughed. "That girl can get away with anything at this rate, I see."

She smirked at me, then returned to chopping her vegetables. "My darling girl can do no wrong. Of course, I don't want her to end up like James. That boy gave me a headache since he was in the womb, I'd hate for you to go through that with Bliss. I knew James was going to be just like Fred and George, and I wasn't wrong." She sighed. "Sometimes I think he purposely provokes me because he dislikes me."

"James adores you," I almost shouted. "I know he likes to wear out your patience, Ginny, but James is such a momma's boy. Don't tell him I said that, though. He'll be upset with me."

My mother-in-law scoffed. "He has a funny way of showing it."

"He loves you," I reassured. "Ginny, he might be the cause of your headaches, but he loves you like nothing else in this world. He admires you—You're his hero, actually. He holds you in the tallest pedestal, surrounded by jewels of ancient places because he knows you're everything."

Ginny sighed again, but it wasn't a frustrated one. From the angle of her face I could spot from my seat, I knew that her expression had softened.

"His greatest homage to you, Ginny, is in Bliss' name. You know James was the one to name our daughter. He wanted something that was going to show the world our baby girl's strength and will to live, and all he knew was that it was you... You remember what happened during my delivery, don't you?"

"The umbilical cord was wrapped around my darling's neck," muttered Mrs. Potter in a tone that suggested she was far away in memory; back to that day four years ago when Healers rushed in and out trying to solve the unsuspecting problem. "She was so low on oxygen that the Healers didn't know if she would make it out on time."

I nodded, attempting to shove away the memories of that fearful moment. "But she made it," I said. "Bliss held on to that little bit of air she had in her tiny lungs and survived. She came strong, fighting into the world. And James and I knew then and there that our daughter's soul would be exactly like yours."

As my words were being spoken and heard by the two of us, Mrs. Potter turned from her task to look at me. There was a glaze glittering her hazel eyes, but it was the happy sort. From the moment I met Mrs. Potter, she always had that tint to her eyes that gave evidence that she was a woman with the greatest wealth in the world—a life full of family and love. Whenever she looked at her family, it was there. And in that moment, as she smiled tenderly at me, I felt warmth seep within me.

She looked at me like I have never been looked at before: a mother loving her daughter.

"No, Bliss! Don't do it!"

"Mummy!"

Ruining the moment between my adoptive mother and I, two figures entered through the kitchen door in rushed steps.

"Mummy," said Bliss as she ran up to my chair and patted my knees to call my attention, "Daddy called Uncle Louis a fairy and Uncle Louis brokeded his noses, Mummy!"

"You tattle-teller!" accused James, the sound somewhat muffled from behind his hand that was holding his nose.

As she was a descendant from the Weasleys, Bliss was a natural to frown like the lot of them. She placed her small hands on her hips, cinching in her puffy floral dress, and scolding said to her father, "I am a truther." She then turned to me. "Grandad Harry says Daddy isn't allowed back outside until he is nice, Mummy."

Not far behind in scolding my husband, my mother-in-law let out a frustrated grunt. "James," she began, "how many times do I have to tell you that these get-togethers need to stop ending with blood. Behave yourself, for Merlin's sake. When are you going to act your age?"

"When Louis stops crying to Aunt Fleur that I aimed a quaffle at his fairy-head!" shouted back James. "'Sides, I don't understand how he was upset—he at least blocked that one!"

Ginny glared at her eldest son, but took a deep breath. "Seeing as you haven't learned to respect your family, you are to stay inside until your father allows you to come back out."

"That's not fair!"

The redhead woman waved her wand at the bowl of fresh vegetables, making them levitate, and then she reached for her granddaughter's hand, which the little girl gladly gave. "You have been warned."

"Potter is our king! Potter is our king! He'll never win! Potter is our king, he ruins everything!"

James let out a giant gasp at the audacity of our daughter as she changed the words to the famous Weasley-theme song that has brought upon more shame than glory to his Uncle Ron. Bliss just smiled lovingly at her father and marched out of the kitchen with her laughing grandmother.

"This is your fault," James snapped, turning to me in his shame.

I snorted as I reached for one of the cooling cookies Ginny had taken out of the oven not ten minutes prior. "How is this my fault?"

"You let her spend all that time with bloody Malfoy! I knew she was going to turn on me," he accused. "I told you we shouldn't have made him godfather! I'll get him for turning a Potter against a Potter!"

I rolled my eyes at my frantic husband. "Babe, you really need to get over your jealousy against Scorpius. You know he is my—"

"Jealous? Me? Of Scorpius fucking Malfoy? That'd be the day!" he scoffed loudly, with his hands now away from his face, I could see that his cheeks were turning as red as the dried blood around his nose. "Bliss is my daughter—mine! He can fuck right off with his thousand-galleon gifts, trips to wicked theme parks, and his I'm-just-the-coolest attitude! Just because you love the git for some unknown reason doesn't mean that my little girl—"

I stood from my chair, bumped into him lightly, and then stretched onto my toes to silence his ranting with my lips.

My mouth was instantly met with gentle and caressing lips that moved along with mine as if they were in synch. The way we kissed was like a perfect language him and I were absolutely fluent in, yet no one else in the world knew of. My entire heart was leaking out the essence of love I had for him and pushed upward and out of my mouth to be swallowed by him. It was the same passionate kiss that has been going on for years but never got old. It was the same kiss we shared when I first selfishly took his heart, when I became sane enough to have him, when Bliss was born, and the one he gives me every night before we both drift off to sleep in each other's arms.

This kiss would always be my lifeline—from then, for now, and until the end of time.

"I love you too damn much," he muttered against my lips as he pulled away from me, accidentally bumping against me and stumbling a few steps back. "I don't know how you do it."

Smiling at him I said, "I think I have a good idea of how I do it." My hands fell against my swollen stomach to caress the life growing in my womb.

His brown eyes instantly beamed with pride as he looked down at the growing product of our love.

"Wait. Where are you going?" He asked immediately as I stepped away from him and began a path towards the door.

"I'm going to watch the remainder of the quidditch game and eat another giant bowl of ice cream," I informed my husband with a charming grin. "Bye now."

"You can't leave me here!"

I shrugged at him, then I looked down at my pregnant stomach. "Come on, Orion James Potter. Daddy won't be joining us today."

"Oi!" James blockaded my path in a swift movement. "Don't be dropping out our son's name like that, Em! We promised to keep the gender of the baby a secret from the others! Don't you know discretion, woman?"

"You should have thought about discretion on the matter when you babbled to Louis about the gender of our baby, James. And no doubt that Louis probably told Freddie, who told Evanna, who told Nia, who told Al, who told Lucas, who told Liam, who accidentally mentioned it to Hugo, who told Lily, who told Roxy, who eventually told the rest of the clan. Scorpius congratulated me not five minutes ago about it, but I already knew you opened your mouth."

"First of all," James raised a finger, "breathe. Secondly, who told you about this?"

"Bliss."

"How in Merlin's pants does Bliss know?"

"One of the gnomes from the Burrow told her after it heard you telling Teddy, actually."

"We have to move always from these bloody gossipers, Em!" James looked entirely appalled. "Wait! Wait! Don't go!" he begged as I dodged him and continued on my way.

"Learn your lesson, then you can come outside," I called over my shoulder.

"Em!" he yelled after me in dramatic desperation. "What about I supposed to do by myself? Solve the secret to Snape's greasy hair?"

I laughed as I entered the garden. The fresh air, the love that swelled my heart and cured all of my old scars, made my unborn baby boy give an energetic kick.

"You'll be here soon enough, Orion," I said to my belly. "And I promise you're going to love this mental family of yours."

"Emily! Come back!"

"Just don't be as crazy as your father, please," I silently pleaded with my boy as I went to join my family.