In the upcoming storm, the wind blew hard, almost drowning out her whispered response. Almost. A series of unrelated one-shots.

What possessed these people, he doesn't know, and he's afraid to know.

Five times Teddy turns to his parents for guidance.

Sirius overhears a conversation he definitely shouldn't have. As a result, Remus stays in England longer than planned and Peter isn't the Secret Keeper. ("Where have you gone? Where are you going? Where are you now?")

The morning of his sixteenth birthday starts at five am.

"He keeps making you cry. All the time. All the damn time, he does. Why do you keep going back? Someone who doesn't value your smiles doesn't deserve to see them."

Because it can't be easy. The words can't be said on sight, or at a first conversation. No, of course not, because life screws everyone over and decided that it'd be a grand idea to have the words be said at random, by someone you've known a long time. Soulmates have to build a bond like anyone else. Neither of them had predicted that outcome.

She mutters a little more and then takes another breath and looks at me firmly. "I don't like that you made that decision without me," she says.

Teddy is an exceptional liar; she should've known there was some kind of devious motive.

The shed shouldn't be so scary, right? Lily's been in there thousands of times. Still, something's different now. There are footprints next to the door, and that's the last thing she sees before everything goes black.

May is never easy, and for twelve years the month has been the bane of her existence. A nighttime visitor attempts to change that.

There were a lot of things he didn't believe in before he met Lily.

"But I can't," he says after a tense moment. "I'm a lot of things but I'm no killer."

"I'm not even going to - just, no. Let's get you to Professor Snape." / "Wh - Merlin, no, Katie - I was trying to avoid him - that's why I called you -"

"Prongs, I thought you were over him. You told me years ago you were."

At dinner, she asked him why. He thought that she already knew the answer, but he told her anyway. / On grief so deep that you really can't move on, and the start of healing

after all, they were just children [...] with hearts [...] that were slowly b-r-e-a-k-i-n-g

The yew wand is used.

Your wand feels slippery in your sweating palms, and you attempt to hold the thin stick tighter, but the attempt fails because such a feat is not possible when your knuckles are already white.

It stings to see the relief in Matt's green eyes.