Mary had gotten impatient and muttering under her breath in Latin, had left the table where Emma and Henry still sat, to go in search of Jed and Sam. She hadn't waffled at all, had just marched off in the direction of the Quidditch pitch and Emma wrinkled her nose imagining the scene about to unfold, Mary's un-magically-amplified voice streaming out across the field where the two boys would be still locked in a battle over the Snitch in what was ostensibly a few minutes more practice; they would have been flying since 9 am when they finished the last of the pumpkin juice and Jed snagged an errant rasher that hadn't quite levitated away with the rest. Mary wouldn't stay annoyed for long though, so Emma knew there was about a quarter-hour left before the trio returned, ready to head out to a Hogsmeade weekend they were not officially supposed to be excited about as seventh years, but secretly were. Mary had designs on a new Lovegood quill and Sam planned to eat his weight in Honeyduke's finest. Jed was just relieved not to have received a Howler from his mother this weekend and as usual, had eyes only for Mary.
Emma had a good idea that Mary was wise to this and that she might finally relent; Emma hoped so for all their sake. Jed had been getting a bit fractious, which made Potions dicey, and Mary had been stuck on the painting she was trying to charm for three weeks, which was clearly related to her frustration at Jed's reluctance to make some specific romantic declaration. Emma didn't have to surmise this; Mary had confided as much before they'd drawn the curtains on their bed and had announced she wasn't willing to wait any longer "it'll be best to know, one way or another—I know right from wrong, and I guess I'll know if it's right. God, I hope so." Emma wasn't quite sure what Sam was supposed to do when Mary shouted them down from the blue sky, but he was a clever boy, the Ravenclaw's Ravenclaw and always had a Plan B, C and Omega waiting, even if he admitted the Omega plan was generally a shit-ton of showing off, smoke, fireworks and tomfoolery.
Henry was sitting beside her quietly, watching her in a way that made her pleasantly warm, nothing like the way Frank had used to in fourth year, when she had been so easily taken in by a jauntily tied scarf, a pretty compliment, a boy who'd started to look like a man. Henry was something else entirely even if neither one of them had the faintest idea how to address the whatever it was thrumming between them like the opposite of a thestral. She was looking at his hands on the table top, considering how he held his wand as if he'd start conducting when he spoke.
"I lied."
"I beg your pardon?" she said, taken aback by the interruption to her reverie and by what he'd said.
"Before, when we were talking about Expecto Patronum and our happiest memory, I lied then," he said evenly. She glanced at his face and saw his dark eyes were very serious. He wasn't having her on, this meant something. Something.
"Did you want to tell me the truth then?" They'd been merry, talking about the spell, whether or not they felt their Patronus matched them. Emma was the least contented; while she'd been quite pleased to see the silvery mist pour from the tip of her rowan-wood wand in great gouts and eddies, she hadn't been thrilled to see the resolution into a flamingo, so vivid that the silver-white fog had had a definite sense of the pinkest pink, the flutter of the feathers rosy and even the stem-like legs and opal that shaded to coral. Mary liked her firefly and no one was very surprised that as it darted and flew, its abdomen glowed even brighter than any Patronus had a right to, a little supernova that echoed Mary's insistence and ardent nature. Henry had been the envy of every boy, even Jed with his gaily cantering Morgan horse, as the great lion settled itself down to sleep as soon as Henry's last syllable faded, pacing around in a circle before lying down in front of Henry, the vision blinking a little at the applause of the class.
"You remember what you said?" Henry asked.
"Yes, that my happiest memory, even if it is trite, is the Great Hall all lit with candles at Yule," she said. However many candles bobbed and flickered in the firmament that first night, there seemed to be dozens, hundreds, thousands more at Yule, Hogwarts itself making it certain that there would be Light against the Dark.
"And Mary said hers was swimming in Majorca."
Her friend said more, about how if felt to be under the water and then breach that skim, find air again in all the blue, the light glittering. It had been a lovely memory and Emma had been glad Jed was not there, to have to pretend not to see that stricken look of desire and fear that Mary would reject him, that his stuffy Pureblood family would not accept her if she did him, his mother firm about the arrangement with Elisabeth at Beaux-Batons. It had been a relief to leave that worry behind and ask Henry what his memory was, a vague disappointment when he'd said helping his grandfather with the lambing, watching the newborn discover its feet beneath it at the same time as gravity and the air sweet with the scent of hay.
"It was a half-truth I said—or does that make it a half-lie? I don't know. It used to be helping my grandfather on the farm, but it hasn't been, not for a while," Henry said. She waited, she wasn't going to be accused of pushing or pulling or otherwise causing this revelation that made him so uneasy and now her as well, almost wishing for anyone, that second year Percival Squivers who had rather a tendre for her to appear with a sticky handful of sweets or a crushed blossom.
"It's you, Emma, you in your silver robes at Yule, your hair in those butterfly combs and everything all light around you—except your eyes, so dark when you see me, and then they're all lit up when I ask you to dance. It's you," Henry said, edging his hand toward hers as if that could touch her any more than his words, his voice, his magic around them both. Still, she turned her palm to press against his and sighed at the way it settled the moment around them, without humor or denial, with the human reality of her skin next to his, what they meant by hand-fasting.
"Don't say anything now. They're coming. But later, later I'd like to hear you say something back," Henry added and gave her a smile she knew she'd remember, as she slept, in Avalon, through all the candlelit nights and years, the dark of the moon and the curve towards oblivion. He had told the truth, the whole truth, this time as Mary and Jed and Sam hallooed entering the hall, calling them forth. The stones beneath their feet gave a little push towards the sunny day, the beckoning future, the response Emma knew she would make, words with every vowel replaced by a kiss, a spell he would understand.