The day had started quietly enough. The November air remained cold and still, hushed by an unending grey sky unfettered by birds that had sought warmth and promise elsewhere. The trees hummed with suppressed shivers, the ground crisp and unyielding. When the day eventually rolled into night, the night was quiet too—too quiet, in fact, for those who had been rubbed raw by war and still met silence with trepidation. So, they trickled into a place that they had come to know and love, a place where trust hung in the air like it was waiting for those who had lived without it for so long.
They hadn't planned it. There were no dispatched owls or winking, broken mirrors or charmed coins glowing warmly with a date and time. Luna spoke often about the unconscious bond that strung the survivors together, a bond she said crackled loudest on the quiet days. Perhaps she had heard the crackling, led one of the thestrals she was raising beyond her house wards, and set off for Hogsmeade. In the biting air, her breath would have revealed itself like the wake of a Patronus.
Perhaps Minerva had walked briskly toward the village, leaving behind her quill and her spectacles and her lingering exhaustion. Perhaps the comforting, lumbering form of a half-giant was already heading there in the distance.
And perhaps a series of pops sounded from inside the Burrow as its occupants apparated to the place Percy went when he decided he was a Weasley after all.
It had been exactly six months and seventeen days since the Battle's end, but they all came nonetheless. When they were together, it helped them forget that they abandoned one another in times of war, when they had their own vendettas to settle and communicating openly was as effective as whispering to walls in the night.
The Hog's Head hadn't been this busy since the Battle. It, too, was war-worn and weary, stooped in the shadows opposite the Three Broomsticks, whose windows shone happily with amber light. The inn remained unpolished still, but only crossing its doors showed what its crusted windows could not. Like its regulars, the tables seemed rough and unbending, but their edges were soft, their legs sturdy. The floors had been cleared of remnants of days gone by, and the waxy candle stubs had been scraped off their perches, new candles floating in a familiar way overhead.
Today, the small room—so often cloaked by unsavoury reputation—held only warmth and love.
It was around the time of the Battle's end that Hermione decided she would return to Hogwarts in September to carry out her final year. In the inn they had claimed as their own, Ron put his hand on Hermione's knee, reveling in her closeness. He knew that soon, work and marriage and children would come, and so he paused, allowing himself to be young.
In these moments, which came rarely as they healed their wounds and relearned the dance of daily life, Hermione thought about how things worked out so terribly and so wonderfully for them all. She coughed away the platitudes that threatened to spill from her mouth, unnecessary reminders about gratefulness and remembering how much worse things could be. Instead, she sat at a long table, running her fingers through the hair at the base of Ron's neck, laughing when foam stuck to his long nose every time he dipped into his mug. She didn't need to say a word.
Harry sat across from Ron and beside Ginny, who opted to return to school with Hermione. The candlelight bounced off the gold in her red hair, reminding Harry of the things that kept him grounded. House pride. Snitches at sunset. The Weasley's crabapple tree Hermione had charmed gold for his seventeenth birthday, when a future with Ginny was an idea fleeting and unformed. He lived in these moments now, steadfast memories that were like handholds in a fog. He still grappled with the notion that the fighting was over, that he could love and be loved, that safety and security were more than something he simply deserved. He wanted to hold Ginny close, but she needed freedom; she was a phoenix who had lived her last Burning Day.
Ginny had the Marauder's Map unfurled on the table in front of her. She studied the parchment with a furrow in her brow, sharing long-suffering glances with Hermione each time Ron obliviously pressed wet mug-rings onto it. The school was old and recognizable, yes, but the damage of war necessitated changes. Now Hogwarts had extra hallways, rooms with new shapes, and several hidden pathways (the latter of which had been George's doing, of course). Ginny was attempting unsuccessfully to break through the map's charm wards to modify the layout, and every time she turned to Harry to steal a sip of his Butterbeer, George wiggled his right ear where his wand was perpetually nestled, whispered a few incantations, and swapped the rooms around.
Luna noticed, of course, but would tell Ginny later that it was just the Wrackspurts at play. She sat across from Neville, discussing which brandy on the menu was most likely to raise the healthiest baby dragon. Neville had so many interests, it turned out; it occasionally saddened Luna that he was only ever approached for his knowledge of plant life. She supposed that this is what she valued most in him, his intelligence simmering beneath a meniscus of modesty. Ginny and Hermione—and once, even Ron—had asked her if there was anything more to their relationship. She never had an answer. Companionship with Neville was devoid of the obligation that sometimes accompanied romance and teeming with the intimacy occasionally missing from friendship. They existed together in some kind of liminal space, just the way Luna liked it.
From her end of the table, Mrs. Weasley watched George carefully, her son for whom every mirror was Erised. She always did these days. It felt strange to be here, in this place full of food she could not prepare and drinks she could not pour. Her hands itched to wipe the tables and clear the plates, domesticity and grief fighting for dominance within her.
Nearby, Mr. Weasley sat with elbows resting on wood, head propped in hands. He was listening to Professor Sprout talk about some peculiar Muggle plant (a Venus flaptrap?), but his mind was elsewhere. He knew that in the inn's low light, George could almost be Fred. And so he watched his wife out of the corner of his eye. He always did these days.
To his right was Percy, pretending to polish his glasses on his shirttails. He slipped them back up his nose, and picked up his glass, nursing a gin and tonic alongside his guilt. He still felt like he didn't belong here, but yesterday Charlie had referred to him as "Perce" in a letter for the first time. Things were getting better.
On the other side of the table, Bill and Fleur were discussing baby names with Andromeda, who sat next to him bouncing a drooling Teddy on her lap. Percy felt little baby fists lightly beating against his arm, and seemed surprised to see the infant reaching over his grandmother's shoulder, gesturing to be held. He awkwardly took him, Andromeda offering him up without so much as a glance. Percy hoped no one was looking; he didn't know what to do with babies, especially the colour-changing kind. He looked sheepish when he realized Harry had noticed them, but the younger wizard only smiled at them broadly, waving brightly at Teddy and making silly faces that Percy found vaguely insufferable.
A little ways down, Kingsley Shacklebolt was putting in a rare appearance. After he had officially been appointed Minister for Magic, he had overzealously thrown himself into his work. He told people he relished the opportunity to brazenly effect change, but working constantly meant thinking less, and thinking less sometimes meant forgetting. There were some things he no longer wanted to remember. Tonight, he sought out the Granger girl to speak about a position at the Ministry, and chatted with Flitwick about the use of the Tarantallegra charm to subdue an opponent into exhaustion. Kingsley was unaware the professor had seen one of his own students fall victim to the funny little dancing spell during the Battle, a sixth-year girl who had danced right off the edge of a staircase and straight into a spray of fatal spellwork.
Across the table, Flitwick thought about how he taught that very charm to second-year students—mere children—who laughed and giggled uproariously, not yet knowing that there was a Nox to every Lumos.
Minerva McGonagall had installed herself at the head of the table, neatly lapping at a Firewhiskey. The morning after the Battle, she had woken to discover her grey-black hair had turned a shocking white. Her body's attempt at pathetic fallacy did not concern her, and she had stopped scraping it back into a bun that day. Tonight, she wore it down, surveying the young adults before her. They were older than she was in so many ways. Hagrid, knowing how much they meant to her, squeezed her left shoulder in a grip that made her ribcage rattle and her joints squeak in a way that had nothing to do with age. He sank into a creaking chair next to her and beamed over his enormous tankard of mead. Minerva reached out a hand, placing it on top of his. Sometimes, her heart burst at his kindness, a gentle sort of love that washed over any room he occupied.
Safely behind the bar of the Hog's Head, Aberforth stood quietly, a dingy dishcloth slung over his shoulder. In his own shadowy corner, he thought of his brother, and how out of all his siblings, it made the least sense that he was the one who was still here. He would tell no one how fiercely he missed them, wishing they could live in the world they helped improve as he languished alone in bitterness. But then his eyes flicked upward, to where he knew the portrait of his sister hung upstairs. Behind it was solid wall, but a passageway used to exist there, a lifeline for a young resistance, a lifeline for himself.
Aberforth stared at the scene before him, at this motley family trying to heal. They had chosen his home as their own, he realized, and the notion blossomed up inside him, urging him to cross the bar. To join their table. To let them inside the other kinds of walls, the kind people build inside themselves. He felt himself come undone. In his hand, the mug he was refilling overflowed.