The tacit invitation/reassurance—just assuming he would live with them (at least at first)—and her gentle hold on his arm both lifted such heavy clouds from his mind… It was as if she was the patronus who'd just sent a Dementor away. (And what would she think if she saw his patronus, these days…)

"I'm so happy you're alive," he whispered back, dipping his head toward hers. "I never thought I'd have such a friend again." Or any. He'd wondered if he should have ever had such friends at all. With this restoration of the present, not only a future but the past came back with it. Yes. Of course he should have. No matter how it ended. No matter that he never knew who Sirius really was—that may have proved a lie, but their times together weren't. Those times were to be held onto no matter what.

Being faced with a car again was another shot of the past, this one even further back. He remembered hard what to do, but finally just stuck his two bags on the back seat and went to the door of the front seat that didn't have the wheel in front of it.

…Oh. He'd never sat in the front of a car. The last time he'd been in one, he'd been a small child.

He looked again at Lily, her hair and eyes brighter than sunshine, and grinned. "Let the adventure begin."