Mary didn’t know why she went there every Halloween. She didn't know why she cried, either. She just did. The sight of their names was too much. She didn’t know the people, but she had a feeling the man’s favourite flower was lilies and the woman’s petunias. She had felt inclined to buy them on the way to their graves the first year. She felt guilty whenever she read the inscription:
In loving memory of
James Potter Lily Potter
27th March 1960 30th January 1960
31st October 1981 31st October 1981
Gone but never forgotten.
Had they been forgotten? No one had left flowers for them besides her for a long while. She could tell from the withered wreath that sat in front of it. She cleaned it sometimes. Every other year, she would bring a bucket of soapy water and a sponge with her when she visited them. The ache in her arm from the heavy water was worth it to her. So were the strange looks when she got on the train.
She also didn’t know why she would cry on the 2nd of May. The 18th of June. Or why she hated the summer. Felt it took something from her.
She didn’t allow herself to have friends, either. The first time she tried to talk to her co-workers at the office, Bradley cracked a joke, and it reminded her of someone. That someone didn’t have a name, or a face, but he had a place in her heart that had been left vacant, replaced by a painful longing. She cried herself to sleep that night. She cried a lot lately.
She didn’t understand her strange emotions until she was walking back up to that grave and there they stood. Huddled together with scarves of red and gold and long robes shielding them from the biting cold that mirrored all too well the ever-lasting feeling that enshrouded Mary daily.
A shudder of realisation jolted her backwards, and her bucket of water swung back and forth with the sudden movement. The resulting splash of water announced her presence to the family at the grave. The eldest person their (Mary presumed the children's father) was who caught Mary’s attention the most prominently. She saw them in the young man and his children's faces.
She understood now, why she cried. She understood why she knew the man’s name was Harry, and that she was there when he was brought home from the hospital. Was there for his first birthday, his first Easter, his first time on a broom and when he took his first steps. Mary was there when he accidentally lit his mother's vase of petunias lit on fire when he was denied an eighth biscuit. She was also there when Remus snuck him a piece of chocolate when he was crying over this outrageous denial. She remembered following his life through the exaggerations provided by The Daily Prophet. She remembered the letters. Slowly pouring in through the years, naming the dead friends that she seemed to excel at loosing. Mary remembered picking up her wand and obliviating herself on December 25th, 1996, when her first Christmas without all her friends rolled around and she couldn’t bear the pain. She remembered it all. Every day of her life at Hogwarts. Every second of the war. She remembered. They were all gone, but she would never forget them. Not again.
So, she walked forward, towards the grave. Towards the family. She placed down her bucket, laid down her flowers and straightened out. Turning towards the all too familiar man, she said “Has anyone ever told you that you look just like your mother, Harry?”