Happy Christmas everyone!

"Oi, Jenson! Anyone home in there?"

He blinked and looked up. Luke was staring at him from the seat opposite, waving his hand in between them to get him attention. "Did you say something?"

Luke rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I only just asked you three times if your stepmum's picking you up again. You all right? You've been quiet all day."

Sirius looked out the train window at the city whizzing past. They were almost at Kings Cross Station. "M'fine," he muttered. "Just thinking."

Luke grinned unsympathetically. "Uh-oh. You know school is over until September, right? You don't have to start thinking about stuff for another week at least."

"Says he who already has a summer job," Sirius pointed out, raising an imperious eyebrow.

Luke shrugged. "Sweeping out my dad's shop doesn't really count. But you don't need a job, right? You can help out at the home."

Sirius grimaced inwardly. That thought wasn't particularly inviting. "Yeah, I guess."

"So…"

"So?"

Luke made a face. "Is. Your stepmum. Picking. You. Up?"

"Oh. I dunno. Probably. My dad doesn't get out much."

"Your dad's a bit mental." Luke grinned.

Sirius couldn't help but smile back. Luke was all right, for a Hufflepuff. Sirius had never really gotten on with the other boys in Slytherin. They all thought his dad was mental as well, but when they said it, it was an insult worthy of Sirius' wrath, and one or the other would usually end up with a broken nose or their ears temporarily cursed off. When Luke said it, Sirius was inclined to agree.

Anyway, his dad always threw a fit when Sirius cursed people. He had no idea why, it wasn't as if everyone else didn't have these little altercations every now and again. But whenever Sirius got in trouble for fighting, it was always like a big deal. There had even been Howlers. No wonder everyone thought his dad was off the rails.

As they rolled into the platform at King's Cross, the sixth years in the carriage pulled their trunks down from the overhead compartments and started chatting excitedly about going home, and the summer holiday. Some of them were still wearing their school robes, as if reluctant to take them off, but all Sirius wore was his Prefect's badge pinned to the sleeve of his t-shirt. It was too hot for school robes, and he was sure to attract enough attention in his home neighbourhood without swanning around in wizarding dress. The Muggle neighbours already thought he was weird.

"See you round then," Luke said cheerfully as the train shuddered to a halt and there was a stampede to the sliding doors. "Owl me?"

"Yeah," Sirius nodded, his grip tightening on the handle of his trunk.

His stepmother was indeed waiting on the platform, with a small child clinging to her skirt. She was dressed in simple Muggle clothes, much like Sirius' own. At least she was usually quite sensible, Sirius thought, as he dropped his trunk and let her hug him tightly around the shoulders. "We missed you," she said, smiling at him, her copper-red hair glowing slightly orange in the afternoon sunlight. "How were your exams? All fine?"

"I'll hold out till I get the results," Sirius grumbled.

"Don't be silly, I'm sure they're fine," Ginny said, waving away his protest. "Hannie, say hello to Sirius." The little girl who was clutching onto Ginny's skirt with one hand and sucking her thumb with the other, waved timidly. She had long blonde hair down to her waist, and was about five or six years old.

"You must be new," Sirius said, smiling, but the girl only turned away and buried her face in Ginny's skirt.

"She's still shy," Ginny sighed, hoisting the child up onto her hip. "But we'll get there."

"How many do we have now?" Sirius asked as they walked towards the archway. Various people waved and called out to him as they passed, fellow Slytherins, friends from other houses, other Prefects. "See you round, Jenson! Have a good summer!"

"Twelve," Ginny replied. "Hannie just arrived last week. It's been a bit hectic, to tell the truth. We're that glad you're back."

Sirius had to stop himself from making a face. It wasn't that he objected to having his house constantly overrun by little kids - unless they made the mistake of going in his room - but it could get a little much, sometimes. Everyone thought it was very admirable of his dad to run the halfway home in his own house, and he supposed it was, but it wasn't as if he had ever asked to be a part of it. It had just always been around, ever since he could remember. It had been great when he was little, always having other children to play with, though they were usually not there for any great length of time. His dad always found a real home for them to go to, and then he would have to make friends with the new kids, usually shy and scared and vulnerable, and wary of this dark-haired, overly-energetic child with the bright emerald-green eyes.

Once Sirius hit his teen years, however, the whole thing had become a lot less fun. He still cringed to think of the summer after his third year when he had locked himself in his room for weeks on end, refusing to talk to anyone or help look after the kids, even when one of them got really sick and needed constant care. It had been around that point that his dad's 'friend' Ginny had moved in, to be constantly on call for her young charges. When Sirius came back home the next Christmas, she and his dad were engaged, and they were married the following summer. Sirius hadn't been sure how he felt about that at the time. It was weird having a mum. It had always just been him and his dad. His dad's friends were around a lot, but they weren't there all the time. They weren't a real part of their family.

Ginny was all right, though. It could have been a lot worse. Ginny seemed to understand his weird moods, the occasional bursts of anger, the bouts of sulking that could go on for days. He had mostly grown out of that sort of behaviour now - at least, he hoped he had - but Ginny was a lot better with dealing with that kind of thing than his dad was. His dad was good with the little kids, but ask him to hold an actual conversation about how Sirius was feeling - well, you might as well be talking to a suit of armour.

Ginny buckled Hannie into the backseat of the car while Sirius got in the front, and then she drove them out of the station car park and into the afternoon traffic, chatting amiably, asking him about school and telling him about what they had been up to at the home since Christmas. "The upstairs bedroom - you know, the one that used to be Danny's - well, it was empty for a bit so we repainted, its a lovely shade of blue now, you'll see - there's a boy called Thomas in there now, you'll meet him later - "

Sirius smiled and nodded and tapped his foot against the floor mat, watching the semi-familiar route pass by through the window. It was quite a long drive to the house, which was out in the country, so that it was getting quite dark by the time they grew near. He could feel himself getting more and more apprehensive as the minutes ticked by.

"Here we are," Ginny said, pulling into the garage. "I'll get Hannie, you go up and put your things away."

"Mm." Sirius went round and pulled his trunk out of the boot, grunting at the weight, and slammed the door shut. He glared at the trunk. He supposed he could shrink it, to make it easier, since he was of age now, but then he'd only have to unshrink it again when he got upstairs. Be a man, Jenson, he thought irritably. He hoisted the trunk onto his shoulder and carried it up the steps to the front door, and then up the three flights of stairs to his attic room. It was a big house. It had to be, for the number of people that lived there at any one time. But the attic room had always been his, and Sirius liked it that way, even if it did mean that by the time he got up there he was puffing under the weight of the trunk. He dumped it at the foot of his bed and looked around to make sure no one had been messing around in his stuff since his last visit. Satisfied, he wandered back downstairs to where Ginny was making dinner. There were three children - Hannie and two others he remembered from Christmas - watching her intently.

"All done," he said.

"Did you put your washing in the basket?"

Sirius made a face behind her back.

"Don't make that face."

Sirius wondered how on earth she did that. "I'll do it later," he promised. He took a deep breath. "Where's dad?"

Ginny glanced over her shoulder at him. "In the study with Beth, I think. Go on and say hello. I'll call you when dinner's ready."

Sirius swallowed. "Okay." He turned and went down the hall to the study. There were low voices coming through the door. He knew he probably shouldn't disturb his father if he was in a meeting, but he had already waited three months, eleven days and six hours, and he knew that if he didn't do it now, he would lose his nerve, and then he might never know. He knocked.

"Come in!" called his dad's voice.

Sirius opened the door. His dad was sitting behind the desk, which was, as usual, spotless. All the files and things were locked securely in the filing cabinet, and had been ever since Sirius had tried to take a sneaky peek at some of them when he was little. His dad blinked at him for a moment and then glanced up at the clock. "It's that time already? Where's the day gone?"

The woman sitting in the chair opposite the desk leaned forward and smacked his arm. "Mark! Say hello to your son, for Merlin's sake." She stood up and smiled at Sirius. He smiled back and hugged her easily when she held out her arms to him. Beth had worked at the home for ages, since Sirius was four or so. She was a cheerful, buxom lady who was the favourite all of all the little kids. When Sirius was little he had wanted Beth to be his mum, but all his dad would ever say was that she was much, much too young for him. But everyone said Ginny was too young for him as well, so he wasn't sure what that had to do with anything.

"Hi Beth," he said. Some of the little kids called her Miss Beth, or Miss Green - or, lately, Mrs Weasley - but to Sirius, she had always just been Beth.

"Look at you!" she exclaimed, ruffling his hair. No one ever seemed to care that he was too old now to have his hair ruffled. Apparently it just invited that sort of treatment, but then, it never seemed to make any difference. His hair just sat that way. "Are you all unpacked?"

Sirius coughed and avoided that question. "Professor Ross says hi to you and Quin," he said instead, and she smiled.

"I really should write to him. Poor William. We've just been so busy. Your dad and I were just talking about building some more bedrooms and getting more people here full time."

He smiled weakly. "Er, great."

Beth looked between him and his dad, sensing the unease in the air. "Well," she said decisively. "I better let the two of you catch up." She patted him on the shoulder and made her exit. The closing of the study door sounded oddly like a gong ringing in Sirius' head.

He turned back to look at his dad. The man looked much the same as he had the last time. Thin. Dark hair, though not quite as dark as Sirius' own. Skin covered in scars. A stubborn sort of chin. Two missing fingers on his right hand. And behind rectangular spectacles, tired grey eyes that nevertheless always had a little spark of something in them. Sirius wondered if it was that same something that made people think he was a bit doolally. Or maybe it was the rumours about him, the mad stories about the emergency Auror who had been captured by the Dark Lord during the war, and tortured, and had been the first person ever to escape. They said he had come home to find his wife and son were both dead, and they said he had brought with him the ghost of one of Professor Snape's famous spies, and how together they had helped defeat Voldemort in those final days. That was the stuff people said. And while no one in Sirius' life - Ginny, Uncle Ron, Aunt Hermione, Mr Lupin, Beth, Quin, Professor Ross, Dumbledore - no one actually denied any of the rumours, no one would ever talk about them either. But it wasn't those things that Sirius really wanted to know about.

"Welcome back," his dad said, smiling. "Sorry - my head's been somewhere else."

Sirius resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he sat in Beth's vacated chair. "Your head's always somewhere else, Dad."

Mark Jenson grimaced. "Yeah, good point. How were your exams?"

Sirius shrugged. "Not too bad. 'Cept maybe Potions. My shrinking solution ended up sort of turquoise. Professor Snape might just decide to fail me on it." Sirius did not get on with Professor Snape. The man always treated him as if he might deliberately attempt to poison the whole class, even though he had never done anything to warrant such suspicion.

His Dad's lips twitched slightly. "I'm sure Professor Dumbledore wouldn't let that happen."

Sirius very much doubted that Professor Dumbledore checked the sixth year exam papers before the results went out, but he decided to ignore this. He set his shoulders, his toes curling up tight inside his trainers. "Dad?"

"Yes, son?" Mark raised an eyebrow.

"I'm seventeen now."

Mark feigned a look of total surprise. "Are you? Well, strike me down."

"Dad..."

"Yes, all right. You were seventeen in March. I distinctly remember sending you a gift. Did you not like it?"

"No, Dad - I mean yeah, the watch was great. Is great. I just... well, remember, last year, you promised we could talk about..."

His Dad's brow furrowed, at first with confusion, then with discomfort as he realised what his son was referring to. "Sirius, I don't know if now is the time..."

"Dad," Sirius said firmly. "You promised. You said we could talk about it when I was of age, and now I am of age, and I want to know. I want to know... about my mum."

~*-0-*~

The boy had been quiet all through dinner. This was not unusual, in fact, since the age of fourteen or so, Sirius had always been a serious sort of boy. Quite like his father, Ginny always thought, but this was a dark, brooding sort of quiet, the kind that in Sirius' case usually preceded an explosion. He excused himself before dessert and disappeared into the back garden.

"That went well," Mark sighed as they washed up, rubbing the spot on his forehead where a semi-permanent glamour charm hid the lightning bolt scar.

"How much did you tell him?" she asked, without looking up. She knew Mark had been dreading the conversation ever since Sirius had brought it up - yet again - last summer. Though privately she had thought that the boy was old enough then, at sixteen, she didn't dare suggest so to Mark. It was his story, and his decision when to tell it.

"Everything," her husband replied. "No point going half-arsed at it."

"Good," Ginny said firmly. "He deserves to know where he came from."

Mark put down the tea towel and turned to stare at her. She had stopped thinking of him as Harry a long time ago. Hard as it was to accept, the Harry she had known really had died that day in Hogsmeade. She loved Mark in quite a different way, though it had taken her several years to make the distinction.

"No one deserves to hear that," he said softly.

Ginny sighed. Mark didn't talk about the past, much. He preferred to keep it in the past. His mantra was 'make new memories'. But they had both known this day would come eventually, ever since the day they had stood watching Grimmauld Place burn down. Ron had shown up not long after that, saying that Blaise was dead, that all the prisoners were dead, and it had all just been a diversion. A lot of Death Eaters had died as well that day, including Lucius Malfoy. Everyone was relieved when he did not follow in his son's ghostly footsteps.

"Everyone should know who they are, love," Ginny said patiently. "It's hard for him to hear, but he's an adult now. He ought to know the truth."

Mark looked with trepidation towards the back door. "Even if it means he hates me?"

Ginny shook her head. "He could never hate you. You're his dad."

"He's a teenager, Gin. Pretty sure they all hate their parents at some time or another, with less reason than he has now."

Ginny stepped towards him, pushing the wet dishcloth into his hands as she kissed him. "I'll talk to him," she promised. "You can finish the dishes."

Sirius was siting on the old bench at the bottom of the garden. No one had much time to tend to the garden these days, a fact which Neville always tutted over whenever he was around. It had a wild, urban jungle feel to it, with ivy lining the tall brick walls and weeds shooting up between the paving stones. There was a plopping sound coming from somewhere, and as Ginny drew closer, she realised the boy was tossing pebbles into the pond. There were no fish in it, and it had long since gone near bright green with algae. Ginny had been meaning to drain it in case one of the little kids wandered outside and fell in it, though it wasn't really deep enough to drown a cat.

She came up carefully and squeezed onto the bench next to him. He didn't say anything, but there were tears drying on his cheeks. She handed him a handkerchief, and he wiped them angrily and threw the rest of his pebbles at once, causing a splash that made a nearby owl start and fly away. "I'm sorry you've had a shock, love," she said gently.

He sniffed. "Sort of," he muttered defensively.

"It's all right to be upset. This is why your dad wanted to wait. It's a lot to take in."

He made a low, choking noise. He looked up at her, and she was struck yet again by how much of Harry there was in him. Especially the eyes, which shone bright now in the light of the setting sun. "You mean about Dad really being Harry Potter, or about my mum being the one who tortured him?"

Ginny winced. "He really did tell you everything."

"Pretty much."

"Are you angry?"

"Well, yeah." He kicked at the legs of the bench with his heels. "My whole life is a lie. Even my name is a lie. Sirius Potter," he spat. "He's been lying to everyone."

Ginny shook her head. "Not everyone. I knew. So did his friends, and anyone who was in the Order. You know about the Order, don't you?"

"Yeah." Sirius rolled his eyes. "I did mostly pay attention in History of Magic. But I didn't think Dad was in it - I mean I know you were, and Uncle Ron, and Aunt Hermione…"

"Well, the real Mark Jenson was never in the Order. We thought it best your dad keep his story as close to the real Mark as possible."

"But why did he have to be Jenson at all?" Sirius demanded, his voice breaking slightly. "If you all knew who he was, why couldn't he just tell everyone the truth?"

Ginny considered her answer to this. The truth was that it had taken her a while to understand it herself, when Harry had made the decision to stay dead in the eyes of the world. Ron had argued. Hermione less so. Lupin and Dumbledore had somehow seen the sense in it. Kingsley, who had taken over as Minister soon after Voldemort's death, had been absolutely against it, for the real Jenson's sake, but Harry had been adamant. "I think it was easier on your dad," she said, watching the owl swoop back to its perch, landing indignantly and puffing up its feathers. "It was hard enough to convince the people who knew him well. If he tried to convince the rest of the world, people would have doubted him, tested him… probably for the rest of his life. He used to say that everything that made him Harry was gone. He even lost all his things in the fire. His invisibility cloak, that belonged to his dad, his photo album… everything. The memories he lost never came back, and those he did have… well. That's why he's always talking about making new memories. And he wanted to make them with you," she added. "Not people who thought he should be something more than what he was."

Sirius was quiet for a while. Ginny hoped he was thinking about what he had said and not wallowing in self pity, though he had every right to do so. "He's not that much older than you really then, is he?" he said after a while.

Ginny blinked, surprised at the question. "Er, no," she admitted. "Only a few months, actually."

"He looks older."

"He went through a lot," Ginny said patiently. "He's still your dad, Siri." She reached out and tucked a lock of scruffy dark hair back behind his ear. "And you're all your dad, thank goodness."

"But my mum was a Death Eater," Sirius growled. "I always thought… maybe she was really ill, or something, and that's why he never talks about her." He let out a short, choking sort of laugh. "No wonder we don't have any pictures. No wonder Snape's always watched me so close - he thinks I'm going to turn out like her, doesn't he?" He kicked the bench again and shook his head. "Why couldn't Dad have told me this ages ago?"

Ginny put her hand on his knee. "Would you have understood?

Sirius' shoulders slumped. "Yes… no… I don't know. It's just that I always thought… I always assumed… that whoever she was…" he swallowed hard. "That she loved me. But I guess that was silly, wasn't it?"

"No love." Ginny sensed a movement behind her, and she smiled. "It's not silly at all." She patted his knee and stood up, making way for her husband to sit in her place, and walked slowly back to the house to help Beth put the children to bed.

Mark put an arm around his son's shoulders, not commenting on the way they shook slightly. The boy had been stone-faced throughout the story as it was told, getting whiter and whiter with each new revelation, to the point where Mark had wondered if he ought to offer something to be sick into. It was good to see him letting out his disappointment, though it broke Mark's heart a little to see it. At least he wasn't pushing him away, or shouting. "I think she did love you, you know," Mark said eventually. It was the only thing he hadn't really had a chance to say, before, and it was the hardest thing he'd had to admit to anyone, ever.

Sirius sniffed and wiped his eyes. "Yeah, right."

"No, I mean it." He sighed. "She thought I was going to kill you, and she tried to protect you from me, before she died. She was more than a little mad by then, but something inside her cared about you, somehow."

Sirius sat up a little straighter at that. "Dad?" he said after a while.

"Yes?"

"Is there a grave?"

Mark frowned. "For your mum?"

Sirius shook his head. "No. For your friend. Draco Malfoy."

"Oh, him. Yes. I go there every now and then, if I need someone to talk to. Would you like to see it?"

"Yeah, maybe. Some time."

Mark let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "What about your mum, eh? We could… plant a tree, or… or something." The thought was a little repellent - Draco certainly wouldn't approve - but all the anger and fear he had held for Bellatrix had faded away over the years. She was just a memory now, one of the pre-Mark memories he tried not to recollect. But it might be important to Sirius, and he was prepared to do anything for his son, as he always had been.

The boy shook his head again. "No," he said, almost forcefully. "I'd rather have Ginny for a mum, anyway."

Mark smiled and ruffled Sirius' hair. "I'm glad to hear that." Sirius grimaced and tugged his hair back into place, not that it did much good.

They sat for a while and listened as the night creatures came out around them, the low hoot of owls that liked to nest in the nearby trees, a scurry of a rabbit or some other small animal through the tall grasses near the fence line.

Sirius had his whole life ahead of him, Mark thought. That was all he had ever wanted for him. And now the truth was out, and so far, the bond he had built for them over the last seventeen years hadn't totally fallen apart. That was a victory that even his nightmares couldn't take away from him, and those were few and far between these days. Frankly it still amazed him that everyone around him was still here. Still living their lives. And he still had them, and Sirius still had him, and those they had lost would still be there, waiting, when the time came.

A dog howled in the distance, perhaps from one of the neighbouring farms. A frog croaked, no doubt annoyed at all the new pebbles that had shown up in his pond. The moon rose higher in the sky, the world moved on around them. And in the midst of it all, father and son sat looking up at the night sky, pondering on the past, and looking forward to what the future would bring.

And that's really the end.

Now for the little nostalgic bit. Still Alive was conceived way back in 2005 - when I was sixteen, for heaven's sake, before even the release of Half Blood Prince... The first installment ended in 2007, followed by Still Fighting not long after, but after one chapter it was abandoned in 2008. The truth is that although I had vague ideas of how I wanted the story to go, I was now older and wiser and annoyed at sixteen-year-old me for creating plot holes I now had to deal with. In the intervening years I got lots of reviews expressing sadness at the tale's abandonment, so that when I started writing again in 2011, the idea of continuing wasn't totally absent from my mind. The response for the second chapter which finally appeared in April 2012 was so encouraging that I made the decision that this story WOULD be finished if it killed me. I almost gave up a few times but was spurred along by people who read and reviewed the chapters nearly every week, especially Emily, mykyou and Effrat Loony. To them and everyone else who popped in over the last few months to offer encouragement... thank you. This story would not have been finished without you.

I hope you enjoyed the ending and are satisfied that I managed to address most of the plotholes dug by sixteen-year-old me. If not (or if you are and want me to know), leave me one final review or head over to my fanfiction blog, misssaigonfic on tumblr (link on my profile if you're too lazy to google).

Speaking of the blog, I posted the Hear You Me song for last chapter on there - that song is basically the Still Fighting anthem slash Draco's funeral song - and will hopefully be re-posting the soundtrack for Still Alive and the new soundtrack for Still Fighting (or, just one that encompasses both stories... I haven't decided yet) as soon as I figure out the best way to share both the music and the artwork with you guys.

If you haven't read my main WiP at the moment, Raindrops on Roses, I suggest you head on over there and read that... cos that's where I'll be! I have an idea for a new project as well but I won't share the details until RoR is waaay closer to being finished.

And with that, Happy Christmas to all and thank you thank you thank you for the last seven years. It's been a blast.