Now I'll Let You Go
By Misha

Disclaimer- Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling and is not mine, however much I might wish differently. However, I am not making any money off of this, so please do not sue me!

Author's Notes- This is part of my "Friends and Memories" series, which is an AU (as of OotP) series focusing on the friends of Lily Evans. This features my version of Seamus' mother, Elaine. This story is set twenty years after that fateful Halloween night and focuses on Elaine really letting go. Well, that's all for now, enjoy!

Rating- PG

Summery- Twenty years after the tragedy at Godric's Hollow, a woman says goodbyes to the friends who were lost during Voldemort's first reign of terror.

Spoilers- All four books.

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Halloween 2001. Twenty years had passed since that night. The night that Lord Voldemort was vanquished for the first time. He had risen again since then and had once more been defeated, this time forever.

But it was the first vanquish that weighed on Elaine Wyse-Finnigan's mind twenty years later. The vanquish that had come to late and at too high a price for her.

She walked softly into the graveyard. How impossible to think that it had really been twenty years since that night. But it had been. She had lived the last twenty years with something vital missing from her life. Her four best friends. They were all victims of the Dark Lord, of those terrible days so long ago now.

She crept quietly into the cemetery and made her way to her first destination. She had decided to spend this day mourning those who were gone and she would do it in the order they had been taking from her.

She knelt beside the grave that read:

Erin Lucretia Figg
1959-1977
Beloved daughter and friend

"Oh, Erin." She whispered, tears in her eyes.

Like every time she came here, she was struck by how close together those dates were. Eighteen years, that was all the time that Erin had had on this Earth and it wasn't fair.

Elaine closed her eyes and pictured her friend in her mind.

The picture came easily. A laughing girl of eighteen with blonde hair and gentle blue eyes. So young and beautiful. So full of life.

Elaine felt so old as she thought of her fallen friend. In her mind, Erin would forever be the woman-child she had been so long ago, while Elaine had aged with the test of time. She was not the girl she had been back then and it saddened her to realize how much she had changed since Erin had been lost to them.

"I think of you often." She said softly. "You were the first of us to fall and it was the never the same after that. We were always aware that you were gone. It's been twenty-four years and I still don't think it's sunk in. I still miss you. I still wish things could be the way they were back at Hogwarts."

Elaine paused, wondering what her husband and children would say if they could see her now. But they wouldn't. She had fought for years to keep this part of herself separate from them. They had no part in this. They weren't there in those days. Those wonderful, far away days at Hogwarts when everything had been so simple.

Elaine looked at the stone in front of her with deep regret in her eyes.

"Goodbye Erin." She said softly. "I should have said this a long time ago, but I could never bring myself too. Goodbye old friend, I hope someday we will meet again."

With that she turned and walked away. She crossed the cemetery and walked until she reached another grave. Or rather two graves side by side. Though she had only really known one of the victims, she mourned them both.

She looked at the words on one with sad eyes.

Virginia Jane Weasley Everett
1959-1979
Beloved daughter, sister, wife, and friend.

The first thing that popped into Erin's mind were the title that was missing.

Mother.

What she wouldhave been had the Death Eaters hadn't interfered. Instead, her unborn daughter shared her grave.

"This can't be real." She whispered, sinking to her knees. "Sometimes, I still want to believe that I'll wake up and it'll all be a nightmare."

But that would never happen. It was real.

"Dear sweet Vinny." She said softly. "I think of you often. Of what might have been, of what should have been. You should have had it all, it was what you deserved."

Beautiful Virginia full of life and spirit.

"For so long it hurt so much, it still does. But it got a little bit easier when we got a piece of you back." Elaine said quietly. "Your namesake, Arthur and Molly's Ginny, she's so like you. She's marrying my boy, Seamus, and that fills me with joy. She doesn't know of you, it's too hard for any of us to speak your name, but she's like you just the same. It's as if a little bit of your spirit came back to us through her."

Elaine shook her head. "It's silly, I know. But that's how I feel." She stood up. "Goodbye, Vinny." She said after a long moment. "I have to let you go. I know that. You'll always be in my heart, dear friend."

Elaine quickly turned and left before she burst into tears.

She apparated out of the cemetery. She had been going to go in order, but had changed her mind at the last moment.

No, this was better. Save the most difficult for last.

She landed on the steps of St. Mungos and within a few minutes she was inside. She looked down at the woman who's bed she was standing next to.

"Oh, Alice." She whispered.

Alice was still alive, if you could call this living. She had spent the last twenty years trapped in her own mind, the sweet girl that Elaine had known so long ago, lost forever. Elaine rarely visited Alice, because it was so damned hard to see her this way and remember how she used to be. Infinitely harder than visiting stones in the cemetery.

"I only wish that you could be free." She whispered to her lost friend.

She knew there was no use in wishing that Alice would come back to them, so instead she chose to wish that her friend would find peace.

Elaine only stayed a minute with Alice, she couldn't bear any longer. And when she left St. Mungos, she apparated to her final destination. Another cemetery, this one located in Wales.

This visit hurt the most, even more than seeing broken Alice.

She walked quietly to another double grave. She read one with sad eyes and then turned to the other. She just stared at it, the words soaking into her mind.

Lillith Zara Evans Potter
1959-1981
Beloved mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend.
"She died so that others might live"

Elaine read the last words with bitterness.

Why had she had to die? Why had it been her life that had to be given so that the darkness might end? She had been asking herself that for twenty years and had not yet found the answer. She would never understand why it had to Lily and James. Never would she understand that.

"Hey, Lil." She whispered, tracing her hand over the engraving on the stone. "I miss you. It's been twenty years today and it still aches. I guess you never recover from losing your best friend."

As much as she had loved Erin, Vinny, and Alice, losing them had not ached as much as losing Lily. She had loved them all, but at the same time, she had loved Lily best. Her beloved Lily, the best friend she had ever had or ever would have.

Because she knew that no matter how much time passed, she would never have another friend like Lily.

Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she could see her as clear as day. Beautiful Lily with a mane of red hair and shining green eyes. Lily who had died twenty years ago this night. It still didn't seem right, that Lily had gone before her.

They had been friends since they were eleven year-old. They had been best friends through seven years of Hogwarts and the days that came after. They stood up for one another at their weddings. They even had sons the same year. They were supposed to grow old together, always best friends. But fate had obviously had had other plans.

"I think of you every day." She said softly. "Sometimes, something honey will happen and I'll think, I can't wait to tell Lily about this, then I'll remember all over again that you're gone."

She paused, trying to collect her thoughts.

"But in some ways, a piece of you lives on." She said softly. "Your Harry is a great boy. Kind, generous, thoughtful, and very noble. Everything you'd want him to be. He's married and has a daughter, they named her Lilly, for you. My Seamus says that he's happy, they're friends you know, just like we always thought they would be."

Elaine was quiet for a moment, remembering the days when she and Lily had watched their baby sons playing together.

"I know you'd be so proud of him, Lily." Elaine said finally. "I know I am. And he looks just like James, except his eyes... Those are all you."

The first time Elaine had set eyes on Harry Potter, that knowledge had disturbed. It was off-putting to see Lily's eyes again, once more shining brightly, but in someone else's face.

"It isn't enough, though." She whispered. "I know that a part of you lives on in him, but it's not enough. It doesn't give me back my best friend. Nothing will. I know that now."

Elaine took a deep breath, the next words would be hard.

"Goodbye Lily." She said finally. "I never truly let you go and I have to. It's been twenty years and I have to finally accept that you're gone. I want you to know that you'll always be my best friend and that I'll miss you, but the time has come. I'm finally ready to let you go. So Goodbye, Lil, I hope you're at peace."

She opened her purse and took out one perfect lily, that she had charmed not to get crumpled, and placed it on the grave.

She stood there for a long time, thinking about all that was gone.

Never again would she be the woman she had been twenty years earlier. But maybe, she was finally willing to accept that and let go of those days and of that woman. Life changed, you had to accept that. You had to take the good and the bad.

Finally, she sighed and turned away. It had taken twenty years, but at last, she was ready to let them go.