Chapter Text
A freezing mist clings to the dips and dells of the landscape as the sun rises over Hogwarts.
Harry wraps his coat close. He is aware of Draco standing near him, grey wool coat buttoned to the top. Hermione and Luna stand together, and Harry sees a peek of lime-green from Luna’s hair: she has brought one of the Herblegrouts with her.
McGonagall greets them by the Great Doors to the castle, along with all the teachers. Harry sees Neville in the crowd, and Hagrid at the back standing far above the others.
“We woke her up,” McGonagall says. “It is good to hear her again.”
Harry can feel it, the underlying current of magic the castle generates. A quiet hum that has always been there without any of them really noticing, not until they experienced the castle without it.
The teachers look tired, and Harry realises they’ve been working through the night.
“It’s over to you now,” McGonagall says. “You take care of her. Don’t,” she says very precisely, “break her again.”
“We won’t,” Harry says.
“This works,” Draco says. “We’ve perfected the technique now.”
It has taken weeks, teams of volunteers, charms, potions, and one official registration of Animagus status, but Draco is right: Hogwarts is the last place to be repaired as it presents the greatest challenge, and they had to be certain of success before waking it up again. Or nearly last: Draco hasn’t returned to Malfoy Manor since the night they put Hogwarts into an enchanted sleep.
“Thank you, everyone,” Hermione says. “I know a lot of you volunteered to join the teams that worked on fixing the patches.”
Harry, Draco, Luna, and Hermione walk into the castle, leaving the teachers outside. Everything inside is whisper-quiet, and in their frames, portraits stretch and yawn.
The Great Hall is exactly as they left it, except now watery dawn sunlight pours into it from above. The benches lie broken under the fallen roof, and puddles of water have formed without the protection of a roof.
Instead of casting the magic illumination spell, Draco and Luna take a swig of potion, one brewed personally by Draco. In the space between one blink and another their eyes begin to change. Their pale irises darken and grow, until they have the eyes of a bird.
Draco looks around the hall, then begins to spray a potion directly onto what Harry knows must be the edges where magic is dormant, not yet absent. When he is done, he nods over at Harry.
Harry steps forward. He has had weeks to think about what he is going to say, what he wants to say to Hermione specifically. “We were asked to do too much,” he says to her. “Dumbledore was happy to let me die to ensure Voldemort was finally defeated, and I accepted that.” He takes her hand. “But you were there for me. You never stopped being there for me.” He feels the tears start to build behind his eyes and does nothing to stop them. “You weren’t born into this world, and you were willing to give everything up to save it. I still can’t believe what you did with your parents. I can’t imagine what the pain of it must have been like.”
Hermione’s eyes are wet with tears now. She squeezes his hand back. “You and Ron were my first true friends,” she said. “And what we did together mattered. It still does.” She takes a breath. “I’ve worried about you for years, Harry. I know we’ve left you alone, that you aren’t part of what Ron and I have together. But you deserve love too.”
Harry ducks his head, but she leans forward and tilts his chin back up.
“You keep your head high. I didn’t understand before why you left us, but I see now that you needed it. You can live anywhere you want, Harry Potter, you will always be one of my best friends. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
They are both crying now, and she holds her arms open. He steps into her embrace, letting himself be held and knowing, truly knowing, that he is loved. She smells like paper and sunshine and an afternoon curled up reading. This, he knows, is one of the homes he has, and it was always there.
Luna begins to point her wand at the floor, moving it in fluid lines. As she does so, Harry sees the glow of magic being activated, one strand at a time as it meets her wand-tip.
He gives Hermione a kiss on her wet and tear-salted cheek, then takes a step back. He has done his part: honesty, and true emotion. Volunteers have fulfilled this role, along with others who have witnessed the words and actions of those willing to bare their souls. Harry personally listened to Minnie Ellerton talking about her cousin; Ridgely has been able to tell everything he suffered during the war. Ridgely and Greg are friends now, a sight Harry would never have believed he would ever see.
Concentrating for a moment on his own body, Harry lets the transformation take hold. The potion Draco and Luna uses changes only their sight: developing it has been key to this process, because as a bird Harry and the other Animagi – McGonagall included – can see but not wield magic.
As he feels the shrinking and pulling of his own shift in forms, the hall around him begins to change. Rather than greys and browns, he can see the lines of magic. They have worked to understand the colours a bird sees, and now he can trace the red of heating charms, deep blue wards, the pale green lines that travel straight through the floor to the kitchens below. He can see the magic that curls golden up the walls, and above his head the sparkle of diamond-white enchantments, flickering at the edges of the ceiling. Everywhere are the echoes of the thousands of spells that have been cast in this space, in a myriad of colours.
Harry flies up to perch on Draco’s shoulder and together they watch Luna. Now Harry can see how she picks up the strands of magic, teasing them loose, lifting them up.
Now comes the part that is the most thrilling to Harry: Draco holds his wand up, glances at Harry, then says in a voice that fills the hall: “Expecto Patronum!”
Silver mist emerges from his wand, then solidifies into the shape of a blackbird. As it rises up Harry flies to greet it, and they fly up in an entwined spiral together before Harry returns to his perch, tucking his head into the warmth of Draco’s neck for a moment.
Then the Patronus-blackbird begins to dart around the room, wherever Draco points his arm. Silver-white magic pours into the edges that Luna pulls up, and slowly they grow, reform, and take on the bright colours that match the room.
It takes time, and both Draco and Luna are sweating, but the gaping light-free void begins to refill.
Hermione adds her otter Patronus, and it scampers through the air following Draco’s blackbird, the outpouring of magic speeding the process.
Once the magic is repaired, and no gaps remain, Draco and Luna lower their wands.
Harry changes back into human form, and with Hermione begins to send the debris on the floor back up to the ceiling. The castle begins to welcome the parts back, and the final cracks and holes heal themselves.
Luna and Draco’s eyes slowly turn back to normal, and they look around the hall.
“Do you think the next one will be quicker?” Luna says. “With the castle helping us?”
“Maybe,” says Hermione. “I’m going to need a break before we tackle it though.”
Draco, true to form, produces a giant flask from his coat pockets. “I have just the thing.”
“You star,” she says. “I didn’t know your Patronus was a blackbird.”
Draco puts his arm around Harry, and squeezes. “I suppose it was inevitable, and I count myself lucky it wasn’t a badger instead.”
“He thinks I should have been a Hufflepuff,” Harry says, to Hermione’s puzzled look. “Personally I think he could have been, not me. Did you know he was trying to woo me with courtship gifts? Like Blaise with Ginny back at Hogwarts? I didn’t even notice. I thought it was Mabel.”
Hermione laughs and shakes her head. “You two are something else.”
They sit on the front step of the castle, drinking tea as the sun climbs overhead. In the distance, a blackbird sings in a tree.
****
Epilogue
“A university?”
Hermione’s eyes have lit up in a way that Harry hasn’t seen for years.
“Yes. He will rebuild, not restore. But there should still be a home for Charity that way. And we were wondering… would you like to be involved?”
“In the building?”
“In a manner. We wondered if you might consider helping us, er, run it.”
“A proper tertiary education for wixen, in Britain? And you want me to run it?” Hermione gives him a shove. “You never ask for small favours, do you?”
“Oi, you two,” Ginny calls out. “Stop hogging the potatoes.”
Harry obliges, and passes over the dish of roast potatoes. He knows already Hermione will say yes: he knows she is itching for a new challenge, and this one ticks all her boxes.
Pansy and Draco finish telling what Harry is certain is an incredibly rude joke to Molly, who is completely crimson, and Pansy takes a second helping of potatoes.
“If I ever get bored of your daughter,” Pansy says, “I might have to move onto you. These potatoes are divine.”
Molly breaks into laughter, going red again, and needs to be whacked on the back by her husband before she chokes on her food.
Under the table he feels Draco’s hand briefly squeeze his thigh before cool long fingers thread through his own. It is a promise for later, and a statement about this moment, too.
Harry looks around the table, and raises his glass. “A toast,” he says. “To family, friends, and the best roasties in the world.”
Everyone raises their glasses. “To family,” they chant, “and friends, and the best roasties in the world.”
Fin