“You are cheating,” Harry said at length. “You are cheating horribly, and I know you are doing it, and in a moment I will figure out how you are doing it, and then you will be completely shamed, because nobody should be cheating at Exploding Snap.”
Malfoy smiled, sunny as the weather and innocent as a child with his hand in the cookie jar. “Gryffindors are such sore losers,” he said. “Snap!”
This was a particularly violent explosion. Malfoy burst out laughing as cards rained down on his hair like confetti.
“Possibly you have cards hidden up your sleeve,” Harry said. “Cards or gunpowder.”
They were sitting on the lawn outside Hogwarts on the finest day of spring so far, using a chunk of what had once been the Charms classroom as a pavilion to recline and play cards upon.
It looked like it was going to be a beautiful summer, which was lucky as they had to have so many classes al fresco. This didn’t cheer up most of the student body, who were appalled that they had to pretty much start the school year from scratch in spring and spend this summer being taught.
It all made Hermione very happy, so Harry supposed that was good, and none of the classes were too ghastly. Even Potions class was no longer a trial, since Hestia Jones was now teaching it and she liked to spend most of her time talking about Snape’s interesting invalid period and how his brilliant mind needed womanly nurturing. Harry thought himself that it was a nice idea to have one more school year at Hogwarts. Just one more year: he was already starting to think of jobs after school, Auror training, maybe a long trip right after Hogwarts was done somewhere really interesting, and living in Grimmauld Place in a definite and settled way. Malfoy wanted to buy a piano.
He could feel himself outgrowing Hogwarts in a comfortable happy way, in the way you did a much-beloved old coat, holding onto it a bit longer than you should. This was the way to end it, with sunshine and peace and Exploding Snap on the lawn.
There was a little pale tender grass growing in the hollows torn in the lawn where the catapults had done their worst. Justin liked to lie in them sometimes and talk about his glory days.
“Where would you like to go, if we did all go somewhere after Hogwarts?” Harry asked, since he was thinking of it.
“I don’t know where you’re going, Potter, but I am going to Romania. I hear the place is crawling with scorching hot dragon-tamers.”
“That’s a very classy holiday plan, Malfoy, I mean that,” Harry told him gravely.
Malfoy tipped back his head and laughed, hair blinding in the sunlight. Harry still wasn’t used to seeing his throat bare of the locket: it looked strange.
“Well, I do have to see Charles, he was wounded and I was awful and distracted, I need to apologise,” said Malfoy, which was the closest he could come yet to reproaching Harry for that week-long stay in St Mungo’s and all the spell casting and the dim memories of how bad the burns had been. Harry thought by June that it would become an epic tale of how inconsiderate Harry was, and then he’d know Malfoy had got over the scare.
Someone had tried to hex Charles and Bessie out of the sky after Voldemort’s death. Charlie had been wounded: Bessie had been enraged.
Even being wounded hadn’t kept Charlie in England long. He wrote a lot of Owls about how fantastically happy being back doing his real job made him: Harry felt if he was so wrapped up in his job he needn’t neglect the dragons by writing Malfoy such long letters.
“What does Pansy think about that, then?” Harry asked darkly, and also with some curiosity: he wasn’t quite sure what was going on with Malfoy and Pansy.
“Stop fishing, Potter, I’ve told you it’s complicated,” Malfoy said.
“Oh, everything’s complicated,” Harry said, mimicking Malfoy’s voice.
“Yes, I know, it’s terrible, isn’t it?” Malfoy asked seriously. “Here we all are being young and carefree in the summertime, when I was so hoping that we’d get some sort of Time Turner in a telescope so we’d know exactly how our lives turned out and who we ended up with and who’d look good in middle age. We could get a good view of the nursing home too, maybe some mediwitch in the future yelling about the Boy Who Lived always misplacing his false teeth.”
Harry had sort of thought things would seem a bit more settled after defeating Voldemort: life being smooth sailing from now on, making things right in some indefinable way, maybe learning to be certain about everything.
He wasn’t certain of much of anything: nobody else seemed to be either. Ron and Hermione were getting off to a rocky start with Ron being down and Hermione nagging him about choosing a career, but then there were other time they looked surer and happier than Harry had ever seen them. There was Malfoy and his letters from Charlie and his carrying on with Pansy and his occasional looks at Harry, the ones that made Harry feel a hollow place under his ribs and several other things, chiefest of which was the worry that Harry was hurting him.
Things were going well with Ginny, though. Really well, even though she was so busy with the goblins. It was just that old thing again—expecting everything to be sorted out in the world after Voldemort and surprised there was so much still left. Harry still thought about kissing Pansy sometimes, and about Malfoy and being smitten. And there were other times when he couldn’t think of anything but Ginny, and waiting until things did feel more settled until any trips to the prefects’ bathroom, since Ginny deserved that.
It was all kind of a mess, and then Harry would think about the details of the mess, the people involved. He didn’t want it changed. He was pretty happy.
There was all the time in the world, and everyone said it was going to be a beautiful summer.
Malfoy elbowed him with one of his unacceptably sharp elbows. “What are you smiling about, Potter?”
“Not your jokes,” Harry said. “I don’t think they’re funny. And I think Neville’s going to nab Pansy in the end, too.”
“I do not see why Longbottom feels the need to collect the whole set,” Malfoy said firmly. “I call it greedy. Bloody Gryffindor, swanning into our dungeons, stealing our women: he doesn’t fool me with that shuffling ever-so-modest demeanour. Neville Longbottom,” Malfoy declared with finality, “is a secret Viking.”
“The words all make sense,” Harry said. “And then you put them together.”
He didn’t pursue the summer thing. There was always the chance, no matter how remote, that Malfoy was going to want to see his father.
Lucius Malfoy had been fighting Death Eaters when the final blows of the war were struck. People were confused about most things in the weeks following the last battle, but they hadn’t been likely to buy another Imperius defence, even if someone had wanted to put it forward. They’d asked Harry what he thought, and he’d gone with Malfoy to see his father. It was something he could do, he’d felt. The way Lucius Malfoy saw it, Harry had taken his wife and his son, and there was no way to save one or contemplate giving the other back.
He just went to be with Malfoy in case Malfoy needed him, and to tell him that he could do whatever he wanted.
Malfoy had wanted his father’s head on a plate three months ago and his father’s freedom more than his own life a year ago. He’d looked white in the fluorescent lights of that bare little room, Lucius’s eyes fixed hungrily on him, and said: “I don’t know.”
Harry had just waited.
Eventually Malfoy had knelt down by his father’s side, taking his hands as if he felt sorry for him, as if Lucius was already an old man. “I can’t forgive you,” he said. “And—and I don’t want to look at you right now. And I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Can you just go somewhere? If you went abroad nobody would follow you, we’d make sure of that, and you have accounts, and…”
He wound down then, like a worn tape recorder, stuttering to a stop. He just held his father’s hands.
“Will I see you again?” Lucius asked. Harry had to look away, embarrassed and sad for Malfoy and even a bit sorry for Lucius, his pride broken like an expensive statue, once impressive and now nothing but dust and fragments.
“Yeah, Dad,” Malfoy told him, low. “But I don’t know when.”
Lucius Malfoy hadn’t deserved to go free. Blaise Zabini hadn’t deserved to come back to school, and nor had a few others, and yet they had. It was all a mess, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to regret even that part of the mess. He’d killed a lot of people. He’d had to, but it wasn’t like his hands were completely clean. It wasn’t like Malfoy’s hands were clean, or Ginny’s, or anybody’s.
It was a good time to try and be gentle with each other, Harry thought.
“Hey, Goyle!” called Malfoy in a voice with the thread of gentleness in it that they all used sometimes when speaking to certain people, and Goyle came ambling happily up to them across the lawn.
“‘M not intruding?”
“Of course not, you complete imbecile,” Malfoy said, which seemed to soothe Goyle more than the gentle tone. “I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to tell you about my signal victory over dangerous and experimental Muggle technology. You know my Walkman stopped working last night.”
“Of course I know,” Goyle said. “You shrieked the place down.”
“I may have given a startled shout,” Malfoy conceded. “You know the acoustics in the dungeon are strange. Anyway, Potter showed me how to fix it. Not that he fixed it: I fixed it. My experience with Muggle Studies means that I was the only one qualified to insert the new batt rays.”
Goyle looked extremely impressed and Harry smirked at Malfoy, which Malfoy made a point of ignoring completely.
“We’re going down to the lake in a few minutes.”
“Pretty much everyone’s down there,” Harry said, and checked his watch. “And Ginny should be back from her interview any time.”
“There was some thought of playing a pick-me-up game of Quidditch,” said Malfoy. “You will be on my team: try not to mess up and make me look bad.”
“Whatever you say, Malfoy,” Goyle told him, smiling faintly.
He seemed to be cheering up a little now they were back at Hogwarts, smiling when Malfoy bossed him around. He’d stopped standing tilted slightly to one side, as if expecting Crabbe to come and push his shoulder strong against his. He and Malfoy did not look lopsided when they stood together, either, though sometimes Malfoy would glance over his shoulder at someone who wasn’t there and flinch, and go white.
Scrimgeour had made Harry talk to a lot of bereaved people—good public relations, he’d said, and Harry had bravely refrained from punching him in the nose. Harry hadn’t done it because of that, but he’d adopted Scrimgeour’s stock phrases because it was always so awful and he never knew what to say.
“He died well,” he’d said to Mrs Crabbe. “He was a hero.”
“It doesn’t matter how he died, does it?” Mrs Crabbe had asked. “I mean, people come to me and say they’re sorry and nobody says it to the Parkinsons, but it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t matter. He’s still dead.”
“I think it does matter a bit,” Malfoy’d said, trying to hide his eyes. Neville and Goyle had been crying openly, and Malfoy wasn’t fooling anyone with his voice cracking like that.
Neville started talking earnestly about how brave Crabbe had been and Malfoy had started insulting Gryffindors and Mrs Crabbe had kissed all three of them before she left, but not Harry.
Everyone said they’d been lucky with casualties. Harry supposed it was true. A lot more people could have died. It was hard to feel lucky about something like casualties, though.
Malfoy got up from the makeshift pavilion with a long, lazy stretch. “You’d better have been practising, Goyle,” he said. “Or there will be consequences.”
They made their way slowly down towards the lake, which was a circle of dazzling rippling light on the horizon when Ginny’s broom veered off course seeing them. It landed on the grass and Ginny leaped for Harry about two seconds later. He caught her with ease and picked her up off her feet and spun her around, so for a moment the whole world was just flame-bright hair and dark eyes.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” said Harry back, and kissed her.
“Quite nice,” said Ginny, “and now put me down.”
Harry did, but he kept his arm around her shoulders and she slung hers around his waist. “How was the interview? I still don’t see why they’re making you do all that goblin public relations stuff.”
“Because ours is a prejudiced and stupid world, Harry,” Ginny told him. “And people think I am cuter than a goblin.”
“Which is ridiculous,” Harry said. “Acwela’s really good-looking. I’ve noticed that. You should let her know.”
“Oh, he remembers my friends’ names now and he hits on them, my ideal boyfriend, gentlemen, behold him,” Ginny said, rolling her eyes and grinning up at him.
“She did learn about diplomacy quicker than you did,” Malfoy drawled. “Of course, that’s like saying she learns languages faster than rocks do, really.”
“It’s nice when you’re in the papers,” Goyle remarked. “My mum keeps them because you’re a friend, and it’s like you’re famous.”
“My mum keeps them too,” Ginny said. “I think she may be papering a room with them. I think I may never go home again.”
“I remember when we were younger and Potter was in the paper, Malfoy used to draw hilarious little faces on them,” Goyle said, reminiscently.
“Really?” asked Harry.
“Yes, we had a whole little comic one time,” Goyle continued, brightening.
“Really?” Malfoy asked meaningfully.
“No,” said Goyle. “I just made it up. Sorry, Malfoy. I don’t know why I do these things.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Malfoy.
“I’m pretty impressed that you’re a celebrity,” said Harry mildly. “I always wanted a famous girlfriend. I’m selling a story about your tattoos to the papers.”
“And oh, how the tables have turned,” said Ginny, laughing, and she stood up on her tiptoes to kiss him. She was warm against him and her mouth was sweet: she tasted like the coming summer, and maybe more summers to follow.
They crested the hill and saw Ron sitting by the side of the lake, looking a little forlorn. Hermione was sitting with Marietta Edgecombe going over spell books and researching ways to heal Marietta’s face the way she often did these days, because studying was Hermione’s preferred method of apologising.
They all drifted over to Ron, and Ginny started telling him about her interview and Malfoy did a little hair-tossing impression of Ginny the Celebrity.
Harry just sat down beside Ron and leaned against him: he didn’t know what else to do. Ron had taken Smith’s death pretty hard. Harry thought he blamed himself.
Harry’d said the same useless thing to Smith’s stern father, looking less stern now and very old. He’d said that Smith was a hero.
The old man’s hands had clenched and he’d looked away. “My sons were all heroes,” he said, sounding very tired. “I wish Zacharias had done what I told him. I wish he’d run.”
“Zach was my friend,” Ron had blurted suddenly, and Hermione had chimed in, holding Ron’s hand as tightly as she could. Mr Smith had looked at them and looked a little comforted. Ron had said a few stumbling things about Smith that made him seem real again, nervous, a little obnoxious and pleased and proud to be among friends and praised.
Harry was terrible at comforting people. He thought it might be because he felt that they were looking at him wondering why he’d lived, against all the odds, again.
It might just be because he hadn’t lost the people he loved. There were moments, seeing Ron or Hermione or Malfoy or Ginny sometimes, in which they looked like miracles: he couldn’t stop looking at them and being overwhelmed with deep silent gratitude.
“We’re thinking of playing some Quidditch,” he said to Ron after a bit. “Could use a good Keeper on my side.”
“Yeah?” Ron asked after a second. “Well, you can always count on me.”
“Knew I could,” said Harry. “Play really well, and we’ll sing your song again.”
Across the smooth expanse of green and the glittering waters there were people sprawling, sitting up and playing: Harry couldn’t help noticing it was a much bigger cross-section than usual. The twins were there pestering Malcolm Baddock with their gratitude for saving Fred’s life, and Malcolm was showing good sense by not opening the latest brightly coloured box. Neville was wading in the lake, his trousers rolled up around his ankles and his bevy of Slytherin ladies trailing adoringly after him making filthy innuendoes about water weeds.
“Where’s—” Malfoy began, and his question was answered when the waters rippled and Pansy broke the silvery surface of the lake, emerging soaking wet in a yellow sundress, black hair hanging in a wet rope down her back.
“Is this the kind you meant, Longbottom?” she asked in a world-weary tone of voice. “It’d better do what you say it does in a potion, or I will have words with you. And then I’ll give Queenie the Gryffindor passwords.”
“You don’t have them,” Neville said, laughing and throwing her the towel he was carrying.
“You think not?” Pansy asked. “Seamus Finnigan is a weak man. Hey, Malfoy!”
“Hey, beautiful,” Malfoy called over to her, and then he went splashing into the lake to slip an arm around her soaked yellow waist, and wrap her hair around his wrist.
They smiled with the impure joy of two people who knew they were crushing Neville Longbottom’s hopes, and did not kiss. Harry didn’t think they were going out, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t: it didn’t mean Neville’s case was hopeless, either. He supposed he’d see how it turned out.
“That girl is shameless,” Hermione remarked, coming over to sit by Ron and ruffling Harry’s hair on her way by.
“I was just thinking, Hermione,” said Ron. “It is a very hot day. You wouldn’t happen to fancy a dip, would you?”
“I thought we were playing Quidditch,” Ginny said. “Come on, Ron, shift your lazy self, I want to get a game in before dinner. And I want to play Seeker, too. Want to play against me, Malfoy?”
“I’ll sit this one out,” Malfoy yelled over to her. “I’ll play you if you win.”
Ginny glanced over to Harry. “Well,” she said cheerfully. “Let’s see what you can do.”
Harry felt the corners of his mouth tug up to reflect her smile. “Let’s see.”
People were getting up now, Malfoy and Pansy wading out of the water, Neville going to get his shoes, calling to each other cheerfully about a game. Funny how now they were all associating with Slytherins more there seemed to be so much betting going on. Goyle nodded over at Blaise Zabini to join them, and Harry tried not to mind.
“You’re on my team, Dean,” he told Dean, who was sitting talking to Luna and looking a little wistfully at Ginny, and then back at Luna. That was another complicated situation, Harry thought, and drew Ginny a little closer to him.
She grinned. “Race to the Quidditch pitch? No tripping people, Malfoy!”
“Sometimes people stumble, this is not a perfect world,” said Malfoy. “It is useless to blame me.”
“Ready!” said Ron. “One, two—”
The Slytherins and most of the other houses, who were wise to Slytherin ways by now, broke and ran on two. They all went racing across the lawn, over the hills, towards the place where the posts of the Quidditch pitch stood gleaming. The sun was hot on Harry’s hair and his bare arms, the wind in his face, and he wasn’t certain about anything except that he was happy.
“I have a good feeling about this game,” Ginny yelled.
“I may bet on you, then,” said Malfoy: Harry glanced behind him and Malfoy was slowing himself down trying to trip people up. He threw Harry a laughing glance. “I have a feeling Potter’s reign of terror is over.”
“Nah,” Harry shouted, breaking ahead, all of Hogwarts running and laughing a step behind. “I’m just getting started.”
the end