A/N: My entry for the 2013 Minifest on Livejournal. The prompt was "Harry/Ginny. One of their children's first times seeing snow." Canon compliant, with epilogue. Canon character deaths. Readers familiar with my work may see a familiar quote, one I used in my fic "Remember, Remember."

ooOoo

Snow is falling over Hogwarts as Harry Potter climbs out of the Thestral-drawn carriage that had met them in Hogsmeade. He lifts James out first, swinging him down onto the castle stairs, then reaches back in for Albus. He balances the well-bundled child on his hip as he helps a heavily pregnant Ginny climb out.

James stamps his feet, kicking delightedly at the powdery snow with his small red boots, then starts up the castle stairs, shaking off Ginny's hand when she reaches out to help him. Ginny smiles over James' head at Harry, expecting to exchange a resigned sigh at their oldest son's determined independence, but Harry is not looking at James, nor at Ginny.

Harry is looking across the snow-covered grounds toward the lake, the expression on his face wistful and just slightly melancholic. He blinks as snowflakes fall on his spectacles, and tightens his grip on Albus as the toddler squirms on his hip, reaching out with mittened hands, trying to snatch snowflakes from the air.

"It's his first real snow." Ginny's voice is quiet behind him. "He was too small to appreciate it last winter."

"He likes it." Harry smiles as Albus claps his hand and squirms again, clearly wanting down.

"Mummy!" James looks down at them imperiously from the top of the stairs. His small hands are on his hips, his eyes focused down on his shiny red boots.

"We're coming, James. Wait right there for Mummy and Daddy."

"The snow's not too deep," says Harry. He nods in the direction of the lake shore. "I think I'll walk down there for a bit."

Ginny smiles and shakes her head fondly. She hadn't really thought her husband would forgo his usual visit because of the weather, had she? She reaches out to brush Harry's fringe back, a familiar, gentle gesture between the two, then holds her hands out for Al.

"Go on, then. We'll meet you up at Poppy's," she says.

"Al can come with me," Harry said, moving his son to his other hip. He settles a hand on Ginny's belly, smiling. "You have enough to lug around already."

She smiles back and gently tugs Al's hat down over his ears, and Harry waits while she climbs the stairs and takes James' hand, watches while they duck together through the great wooden doors into the castle. It is Christmas Eve day, the students are home with their families, and all is as quiet as snowfall at Hogwarts.

Hogwarts.

Harry walks carefully through the snow, talking softly as he moves, a quiet, running commentary of his own time here, memories of Patronuses and golden eggs and merpeople and a dog called Padfoot. He holds Al comfortably against him as the snow continues to fall. Three years into parenting, carrying a child is as natural to Harry as riding a broom, as holding his wand. The air is fresh and clean, just the barest hint of smoke in it from the fire in the groundskeeper's hut, and not once as he makes this bittersweet pilgrimage does Harry miss the sounds and smells of London. There is nothing as quiet as a winter day in Scotland when the children are gone from Hogwarts. There is nothing quite as peaceful as snow on Christmas Eve. Nothing as strong, nothing as heartbreaking as the black and white marble tombs standing silent vigil through days and weeks and months and years – more than ten years now.

Ten.

The seasons come and go, the children come and go, and life moves silently on around these slumbering giants of men.

Al's red woolen cap is white with snow when Harry stops in front of the tombs. Dumbledore rests in the tomb on the right. It has been defiled twice – once by Voldemort to steal the Elder Wand from the dead Headmaster's hands, and once by Harry himself to return it. The marble slab has been replaced, the outline of a phoenix in flight added, but there is no inscription other than the name and dates, no quotation to sum up all this man was and all this man did. Eleven and a half years after Albus Dumbledore's life ended at the top of the Astronomy Tower, eleven and a half years since Harry stood with him on the island in the cave, coaxing him to drink the potion. Eleven and a half years since two men, the Boy-Who-Lived and the spy who loved his mother, held fast to their promises to their powerful mentor. And still…still it hurts.

"Bird," says Albus. He has twisted around in Harry's arms and is reaching toward the phoenix.

This child who carries the headmaster's name is nothing like him at all. Harry is glad of that.

"It's a phoenix," Harry says. "Fee-nix," he repeats, enunciating each syllable as he traces the outline of a wing.

"My bird," repeats Albus, quite firmly, and Harry knows he is being corrected and gives it up.

"I've brought one of my sons today," Harry says, not feeling silly for speaking to a dead man inside cold marble. "I've told you about him. He turned two last week. We named him for you – well, for you and for Professor Snape. Albus Severus." He glances at the tomb to his left, his heart welling with regret. Still. After all these years.

He takes a step closer and Albus, close enough now to touch the marble, reaches out immediately and draws his hand over the simply engraved bird. His mitten comes away glazed with snow, and he shakes it happily before putting it into his mouth. And though Albus tastes only snow, Harry tastes and sees and remembers…fire and ash and the trill of phoenix song when all was so very nearly lost.

"Tomorrow's Christmas," he says to the marble. "Things are going well. I'm happy. Life…life is good."

He thinks of their home in London, of the hours spent in the park with James and Al, of Sundays at the Burrow and chasing after James as he speeds off – a daredevil already– on his tiny broom. He thinks of Ginny, and the years they've had together, of how they are happier and stronger together than apart, of the realization that he loved her, wanted her, and not just because she was part of a family he loved. He thinks of their soon-to-be-born daughter, of Hermione and Ron's newborn son, and balances all of it against the world at large, the Greater Good.

He's glad Albus Dumbledore did what he did, that he gave what he gave, but Harry…Harry has done enough.

He only has to take three steps to the left to stand before the black marble of the second tomb.

Severus Snape is buried here, the marble slab engraved with his name, the dates of his birth and death, and an inscription.

"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage."

Buried before him are the two bravest men Harry ever knew, but in his mind, they share little more than courage.

Albus reaches forward again as Harry steps closer to the tomb.

"F'ower, Da," he says. "Pretty f'ower."

"It's a lily," Harry says, taking Al's mittened fingers and tracing the outline of the flower engraved in the marble.

"Wi'wy!" exclaims the child. He jerks his head to one side, then the other, searching, Harry knows, for his mum and the baby sister named Lily she carries inside her.

"Mum's in the castle with Auntie Poppy," Harry says. He lowers his son until he is standing in the snow in front of him, then sits on the ground and gathers Al into his lap. He doesn't charm the ground first to cushion it, nor does he clear the snow or perform an impervious charm on his clothing. A part of him wants the cold to seep into him in the winter, just as he wants to breathe in the scent of the lilies in the early summer.

Every year that passes, he understands Severus Snape just a tiny bit more.

"I've brought Albus Severus with me," he says as the boy in question leans forward over the band of his arms and brushes his hands in the snow. "Someday, he'll be at Hogwarts and he'll read about you in his history books. I'd like him to get to know you before that, though. I want him to understand your sacrifice. What you did for him."

Harry stares at the black marble while Al gleefully plays in the snow. Harry has let him go now, and the boy is stomping in his own red boots, studying the tracks they leave.

"We're about to have another baby," Harry confides. "A girl. We're naming her Lily."

He nods then, his message delivered, and stands up slowly, swallowing around the lump in his throat. Sometimes, it doesn't seem fair that he lived while so many others died, but he's learned that life isn't always fair, and to appreciate the gifts he's given. Another day, another year, another lifetime. Another child, another pair of red snow boots, another night with Ginny in his arms.

He is melancholic but not bitter as he presses his hand against the marble, wishing again that he had known earlier, that Dumbledore had told him more, that he hadn't called Snape a coward the night Dumbledore died

He bends to lift up Albus, then leans in again to press his lips against the marble. He straightens, then pulls off Al's mittens to shake the snow from them.

And it is precisely then that Al leans in and presses a hand against the marble beside the inscription. The wind has changed and the snow has collected on the stone, but it melts away beneath his fingers and when Harry slips the mitten back on, a tiny handprint, perfectly formed, remains behind.

It is a complicated web of love, but Harry's memory is long, his roots deep.

And he fervently hopes that the circle is broken with this tiny, green-eyed child who stands on the shoulders of giants, this legacy he has given Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore.

That Albus Severus Potter grows to become not Dumbledore's man, but his own.

Fin