AN: I started writing this a few months ago. I wrote out Dean and Luna's story on a lark (a very bored, stuck with my other stories lark), and then I started writing out the other parts when I had time. I rushed through the last couple so I could post this now. It's my first story or chapter of the year. I hope you like it.
All this is, is a compilation of what I think may have happened around the end of the battle. I did only the characters I thought of or thought had a story to tell, so forgive me if I missed one of your favorites.
Disclaimer: Luna married some guy we've never heard of? So would not have happened if I wrote it. As you can see by the first part of this.
"Luna!"
Dean Thomas might be a war hero, but he was no Harry Potter. Crowds did not part for him. Crowds didn't even notice him as he tried to squeeze between two large groups of students, exchanging grim war stories ("See there! It's going to be a scar, that is, and the bloke was twice my size if he was an inch …" "Come off it, I saw the whole thing. You would've been bottoms up if it weren't for Flitwick, but I was fighting off three at a time, I'm missing part of my toe, look …"). They didn't notice as he danced around the fallen rubble and the couple pressed up in a corner that he simply refused to look at too closely. They didn't notice, either, when he lost his war with the fallen stones on the floor and pitched face-first into a nearby bench.
Limping, Dean did his best to use his height to his advantage, scanning the banquet hall for the familiar radish earrings and cork necklace. Cupping his hands to his face, he called again, "Luna!"
The crowds simply pulsed and moved ahead of him. After so long on the run, and months hidden away in prisons and Unplottable houses, he was truly tired of the masses surrounding him. People were suffocating, really. He wondered that he'd not noticed it before. Still, he needed to find her. They'd survived together. He had to make sure …
"Luna!"
He'd had enough. The adrenaline of the fight had left him, and now all he felt was the wall of humans crushing in on all sides. He needed out.
Skating through breaks in knits of students and soldiers, he found a crack in the wall that was big enough to squeeze through. He breathed in a deep sigh of relief and fresh air.
In front of him sprawled vast rolling hills where he had spent his childhood. Great holes were burnt into the ground, trees were knocked to the side, and bodies were piled at random points around the castle like so much timber.
He turned from the Forbidden Forest, from the uneven ground shaken by giant's feet and centaur stampedes, and headed towards the mountains. The black surface of the lake reflected the sun dismally as he walked around it. The usual path, tread by centuries of students, was still mostly intact, and not a single human, dead or alive, obstructed his way as he put as much distance between himself and the castle as he could manage with his weary bones weighing him down.
A lone old oak stood a few meters off the path. It looked secluded enough that no one would come around and bother him for a while. After he rested, he reasoned, he would go looking for Luna. He just needed a chance to breathe.
A flicker of silver peeked itself around the tree. Moments later, a Patronus in the form of a rabbit loped over to Dean. It stopped just in front of him and twitched one of its ears in a friendly sort of way. Dean took off at a run to the tree, leaving the poor Patronus to scuttle after him as best it could.
Huffing and limping and clutching his side, he arrived at the other side of the tree to find Luna Lovegood leaning on its trunk.
She smiled her sleepy smile just for him. "Hullo, Dean."
Dean felt silly now. He was giddy as anything to see her here, alive, but such an outburst of emotion was out of place around Luna. He settled for a slight breathless reply. "Hullo, Luna. You're … you're alright."
"Yes, I am." Her Patronus leaped into her arms. She cuddled it to her chest. Her bright yellow hair fell in soft curtains over and through the silver spell. "I was worried about you."
These words made Dean feel a little saner. He gazed down at the oddest girl he'd ever met and felt at peace. "I was worried about you, too."
He wondered, hazily, what Seamus would say about how much he cared about Looney Lovegood.
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They sat in a loose circle. Hands were clasped, shoulders grasped, but every single person had their own space. Their orange (and one silver) covered heads were bowed, their skin pale enough to set off the freckles on every face or neck or arm. None of them had managed to cry yet. They would do that when they were ready, with a spouse. A good friend. A brother.
No family besides the Weasleys had given as much for the war, and so it followed that they had lost something, too.
Percy stared with repentance at George, and George stared at the ground.
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Harry had left them all alone. He had left them in front of Dumbledore's office, and for the first time, really, they were alone. And now she was fantastically embarrassed.
What had she been thinking, throwing herself at him like that? Not that she hadn't wanted to. Or that she could ever regret a kiss like that. But what must he think of her? What did Harry think of her, for that matter? She didn't do things like this. She wasn't impulsive. She thought things through. And now she was a – oh, what had Ron called it? Ah. A scarlet woman. That was it.
Only …
In all those books she read, a good few had been novels and fairytales. Among the cracked and aged pages of Hogwarts' library, and within the plastic bindings of the new books she purchased at the shop down the road from her Muggle home, she'd come to one conclusion: It all came down to that one kiss.
The hero and heroine would always deny their feelings, at first. Never for quite the same reasons, of course. They might be friends who didn't want to push things too far, or they thought that they hated each other because they fought so much, or there were some circumstances that drove them apart. Like a war. Or a friend in trouble. But then, at the end, they'd share this one perfect kiss and decide to be together forever.
And she supposed that at that moment, when Ron had said what he said, she'd thought it was time for their one kiss. Only, she thought they'd probably die, so there was no pathetic, saccharine ending in her head. She wasn't stupid enough to think that with one kiss, just like that, all the things they'd been dancing around for years were just going to go away.
Except maybe she did a little. And then there was an after, because they'd lived, and books didn't tend to have afters. They went up to the kiss and then gave a vague epilogue that suggested that the couple stayed together. Besides, not once had the heroine practically thrown herself at the hero.
Which brought her back to being a scarlet woman. And absolutely no place to look for help.
After Harry left, she and Ron had sort of … wandered. Going back to the Great Hall meant dealing with all the sad stuff they weren't ready for. Going downstairs meant seeing ruin and people and having to talk. It was risky to even use the main corridors.
She had suggested using the secret passageways. There were plenty of them, after all. And who knew them better than a member (or two) of the D.A.?
Twenty minutes in, twenty minutes of her looking at the ground and his ears lit up like a Christmas display, she finally decided it was time to talk. That was what she was good at, anyway.
"Ron."
He chanced a quick look at her; in doing so, he neglected to see the portrait frame in his path. "Damn it!" Hopping on one foot, he rubbed at the toe that the frame had attacked. "Bloody hell, that hurts!"
"Ronald!" she reprimanded, more out of habit than anything else. "Stand still, won't you? There's a simple spell if you'd just …" She grabbed at his shoulders to anchor him down.
His foot dropped back to the ground. "Yeah?"
They certainly were close.
Ron inched just a little forward. "Hermione?"
Alright. She wasn't so good at talking. Arguing, perhaps; but talking, after what she'd done, was a bit more difficult.
She cleared her throat unnecessarily. "You're foot's better, then?"
He was grinning at her in an infuriating manner. Like he knew exactly what she was feeling and found it amusing. "Loads better, thanks."
"Good, because you looked like an idiot, hopping on one foot all over the place." She was babbling. Dear God, she was babbling and she had no idea how to stop. "If you'd just look where you're going every once in a while, you wouldn't have these things happen to you. I mean, you are far too tall to just do …"
"You really are a bossy know-it-all." He laughed when he said it, like it was the sweetest compliment in the world.
She couldn't help it. She began laughing as well. "You're an insensitive prat, just like I've always said."
"As long as that's settled."
Then he kissed her. This time she got to really enjoy it, savor the feeling of the rough wall behind her back and his grimy hands twisted in her hair. Maybe books should explore relationships beyond that one kiss, because she was rather liking this second one, and she was pretty sure there would be more to write about with her and Ron. A lot more.
After all, Harry had left them all alone.
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Oh Potter, you rotter, you did it, you won
Three cheers for wee Potty, now pass me some rum
And kiss me bum
Peeves swooped over the Great Hall, cackling with unbridled glee. He pulled faces, threw rubble, and sang like a dying bird from rafter and rail.
"Oi! You!"
Tumbling like a clown with no gravitational limits, Peeves rollicked off in the direction of the Ravenclaw ghost.
"Mopey!" he exclaimed, wagging his tongue at her. "Mopey, mopey Ravenclaw! Wot's wit the mug, moppet? We've won, ain't we? It's time for singin'!"
Off he sped, bellowing another victory verse with a voice like an alley cat being chased away by an angry restaurant owner.
Helena hung wordlessly in the corner of the banquet hall. She looked over the celebrations and grief of the humans below with eyes of translucent blue. Thin wisps of arms tightened her customary cloak as close as it could get.
It cannot get close to you. It cannot touch you. You are not enough of a being to be capable of touch.
The afterlife had not been kind to her. The gift of her mother, her pulsing, thriving, extraordinary brains, rotted century after century, unable to keep the attention of the living for more than the occasional polite conversation or clever riddle. She had become used to being trapped within her own mind. Existing in this form, merely existing instead of living, was unbearable enough; that she must make up for her mistakes by wandering through the halls of the school her mother built, hearing the penance of her murderer echoing through the dungeons below, was an ever-living nightmare. She had come to hate the students and their teachers, with very few exceptions. They bemoaned the petty inconveniences that mucked up their beautiful lives like the spoiled creatures that they were. Did they not know how she wished for a simple breath? To taste the air around her – the brisk fall or lazy warmth of summer? How could they not understand her yearning? How did they deserve these gifts she had so soon been denied?
Still. And still something haunted her – a rather peculiar sensation for a ghost, to say the least. Watching these children, for she suddenly remembered that's what they were, struggle with the mantle of soldiers stirred something in her. Something that had echoed within her when she had been plied with the intoxicating kind words of such similar and dissimilar dark-haired boys. It was true that she had only felt the emotions anger and bitterness is many decades, but others were not lost to her. She only had to remember what this one was.
With a sudden palpitation of her marble-white chest, she knew what it was. Guilt. She was guilty. She had helped to do this, and it was more than her shriveled heart could bear.
Tears ran from her unforgiving blue eyes down her smooth cloak, through the careful hems and the bottom and into nothingness.
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Slughorn was a pompous man. The man matched his love for himself with his ever-growing girth pound for pound. As a result, though he was a powerful and clever wizard in his own right, it didn't often occur to many people to regard the rotund professor with anything approaching awe, to his great disappointment.
That was, until he had crossed wands You-Know-Who and lived to tell the tale.
Surrounded by a dozen or so youngsters, all staring at him as if he were in fact the Holy Grail, Horace Slughorn was in his element. With great flailing and wand jabbing (his form was reminiscent of an ancient gentleman having a go at a disobliging dummy), he demonstrated the great magical craft that he had portrayed in his single-handed duel against the Dark Lord. Scraggly white hair flopped over his gradually reddening bald spot as he enthusiastically relived every moment of his harrowing battle.
A few yards away, Professors McGonagall and Flitwick had paused in their current effort to aid Dennis Creevey in finding his older brother, who had apparently never appeared at the pub. A curl formed in the old woman's lip as she watched her colleague act out an ill-befitting fantasy. Flitwick, however, chuckled jovially. "Ah, Minerva. What harm can it do? Let the man have his fun."
"It is an embarrassment," McGonagall snorted through a severe nose. "I shall have to have a word, later on."
Any further discussion of the matter was cut short by the tiniest and most pathetic of wails. Dennis had found his brother.
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Only natural that he feel uncomfortable. Only natural that he feel unwanted. The greatest war in wizarding memory and he had no idea which side he'd fallen on. Draco Malfoy, you see, had never been a good person. The one solidly good quality he had – the only one his parents had, either – was that he loved his family. Only natural, then, that he ended up with them in the end of all these things.
Cast aside, least important of all the major players, but they had done their part well. They had earned a little peace.
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Black, messy hair was further ruffled by the growing wind as Harry Potter increased his height inch by inch into the sky. Things below were too hard, too difficult to deal with at the moment. Things up here were the same as they always were – clouds and thin air and birds were unimpressed with the dealings of the world beneath them.
Harry, having no broom of his own, had deemed it "borrowing" to snatch one of the brooms spilled on the grass from where the broom shed had been blasted open by what he assumed to be a stray curse. Only after he kicked off had he removed his Invisibility Cloak, eliciting the gasps of the few people standing nearby. The Cloak had slithered down to cover the broom's backend entirely; he wondered, briefly, if a new rumor would begin that Harry Potter could fly.
Cheers followed him as he urged himself higher. The last thing he wanted were for people to watch him some more. Breaking his ascension, he swung around and shot off in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. No one would follow him there.
The Forest was silent and still. He dropped and pulled out level, letting his feet graze the top of the trees. Dark leaves waved at him slowly, dipping and weaving in time with the same breeze that lifted up his Cloak, making it stream behind him like a unicorn's tail. Everything here was so quiet. The woods stretched in front of him endlessly. It occurred to him he'd never seen the back of them before. Maybe there wasn't one. Maybe they continued on forever. Maybe he could keep flying on for the rest of time, his sneakers scratching against twigs, smelling the unique blend of tree flowers and soggy dirt, and never have to go back to deal with all the feelings and emotions he didn't want to face. It was a silly thought, but it was comforting one. He had a way out, should he want it.
Wheeling about, he turned back to the castle. He had long ago proven that he was indeed James and Lily's son; that he was Sirius' godson, for that matter. When had he ever taken a way out?
Thankfully, when he came to the grounds, there was only one person standing on the Quidditch Pitch as he landed. Ginny, Harry decided as he gathered his Cloak up from the end of the borrowed broomstick, had never looked more beautiful. Her orange hair flamed in the sun, and her unreadable expression had made her moon-colored face look becomingly mysterious. Her arms were crossed defensively. Against what, he didn't know.
Neither of them said anything for a little while. It was strange for them to have the idea of being together without any strings attached; and this new notion hung between them, and they hadn't any idea what to say now that they had it.
Ginny, unsurprisingly, spoke first. "You're always leaving me."
"I always come back," he pointed out.
"I don't want you to leave anymore," Ginny insisted, pulling her arms even more snugly to her body. "Even if you do come back. D'you hear me? I won't let you, Harry, you can't ever again. I hate it, I hate it!"
For a second, Harry was sure Ginny was going to hit him. Instead, she threw herself into his arms. Hard. Wet trickled down the back of his neck. Ginny Weasley, toughest child of the entire Weasley clan, was crying because of him.
He patted at her awkwardly, thoroughly stunned. "Ginny? Ginny, look, I'm sorry …"
"You were dead." Her voice was muffled by his mud covered T-shirt. "I saw you. You were dead."
Harry had nothing to say to this. Tilting Ginny's head up, he saw her brown eyes shine with water and defiance. He kissed her on her lips, lightly, meaningfully, making her a promise he was fairly sure he couldn't say. Ginny had a way of making him tongue-tied.
After he finished kissing her, she pulled back just enough to be able to punch his right shoulder. Hard. Then she grinned at him, and he grinned at her.
Harry and Ginny walked back to Hogwarts slowly, tangled in each other's arms.
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Kingsley sat in the round office of the Minister of Magic and took everything in from this new angle. Certainly he had been here before, but everything seemed different when he was behind the desk. He hadn't imagined it would happen like this. It was too odd for him to process. Fighting a war one minutes, in charge of the entire magical community of Britain the next. He wished to talk to Harry, because he alone knew how to deal with such rapid changes, but he expected he had enough to be getting with at the moment.
Twisting his head about, he gave instructions to the subject of the portrait behind him that he wished to have a meeting with the Muggle Prime Minister. The little man gave a curt nod and sidled off to his other frame.
"Minister."
Kingsley continued to gaze at the empty frame, trying to think what to say to this man who had once known him only as a secretary. How was he to explain all that had happened?
"Minister."
Wait. That was him. He turned to see Bucket, one of the few Ministry wizards that he felt he could still trust, smirking at him from the door. "Yes?"
"Umbridge is here to see you," Bucket said with relish. Kingsley's lip twitched with the hint of a smile.
"Bring her in."
"Right you are, boss."
Sounds a scuffle ensued from the other side of the door; seconds later, Umbridge came through, apparently shoved. Trying to appear in charge of the situation, she patted her curls, smoothed her pink tweed skirt, and sashayed up to Kingsley's desk. "How may I help you, Minister?" she simpered in her child's voice.
"Hello, Dolores," Kingsley said pleasantly, settling down into his new chair. "It's been quite a day, hasn't it?"
"Quite a day, sir," she replied, her toad-like face turned down in disapproval. "Wonderful news of the defeat of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named."
"Still unable to say the name of your master?"
That tiny throat clear honestly grated on every one of Kingsley's nerves. "I beg your pardon, Minister?"
"The things you did to Muggle-borns," Kingsley answered, nose flaring with suppressed rage. "Do not pretend you did not know what you were doing was wrong."
Umbridge drew herself up to her full, unimpressive height. "I did all that I have done, everything I have done, in the name of the Ministry," she insisted shrilly. "I will have you know I did nothing for You-Know-Who intentionally. I did it all because of my deep loyalty to the Ministry. You cannot penalize me for that."
Her chest puffed out with pride at her dedication. Kingsley felt a deep disgust boil within him.
"Don't worry, Dolores, I won't fire you."
Blinking rapidly, Umbridge managed to stammer her thanks. "You will not be sorry, Minister."
"No, no I don't think I will." He smiled at her indulgently. "Unfortunately, the position you held will no longer exist under my watch, so we will have to relocate you. Accordingly, you will start as an ambassador in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures."
She nodded frantically. "Anything I can do for the Ministry."
"Wonderful. Bucket!"
The wizard appeared from out of nowhere with a crack. "Minister?"
"You will be working with Umbridge. Care to tell her who she'll be working with?"
"With pleasure." Bucket turned to Umbridge with a delighted expression on his face. "We work for the Beast Division. Centaur Liaison Office. We'll be going down to the herd at Hogwarts to help them rebuild their homes in the forest."
Umbridge's protests echoed throughout the office as Bucket, who was enjoying this far too much, dragged her out the door. Kingsley leaned back in his chair, pleased with himself. Until he was sure of the Ministry, he couldn't begin punishing people like Umbridge for their crimes. He needed to keep them all nearby to be sure that they didn't lose themselves in another country and get off for what they'd done. Still, that didn't mean he had to let her off completely.
Chuckling, he threw powder onto his roaring fire and stepped into the emerald flames.
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Andromeda Tonks was a simple woman. She had defied her parents only so she could be with the man she loved. She had defied Voldemort only so she could protect her daughter and husband. It wasn't that she was a coward. She'd wanted a quiet life, that was all. A quiet life with her family.
As she clutched little Teddy to her chest, she wondered why things had ended up this way. She'd lost nearly everyone she cared about in such a short time. There lay the bodies of her little Nymphadora and poor Remus. Too young. All too young. She didn't even know where Ted's body was. And here she was, all alone, with a child to raise.
She touched a finger to her dry eyes, wishing that she could cry. Anything to relieve this ache inside her.
A hand rested itself on her shoulder. She turned to see Molly Weasley, having finally left her grieving family, standing beside her.
Andromeda sighed. "I don't know how to do this by myself. Raising Tonks was a challenge, and that was with Ted. And we were much younger. Oh, Molly, they were all so young." Her breath became increasingly wet and ragged, but still no tears came.
"By yourself?" Molly's sad eyes laughed at her. "D'you really imagine we'd leave you on your own like this? Never. And don't think for a second Harry won't help." She paused, then added quietly, "You remember how attached Sirius was to him. Harry won't hesitate to do the same for his own godson."
"Of course. You're right, Molly, of course you are." Andromeda smiled as best she could. "It won't be easy, though, will it?"
Molly drew the younger woman into a deep hug. "None of this will be easy. We must simply muddle through it as best we can."
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It was a shocking thing to see Lavender Brown covered in werewolf scratches. She'd always been so unerringly pretty. It was wrong. Seamus felt wrong, being with her in this condition. But the Patil twins were being nursed for their own minor injuries, and her parents hadn't been notified with all the commotion of the past few hours. Someone had to stay with her. He reasoned that it might as well be him.
Her eyes fluttered open. She looked at him, confused. "Seamus?"
His throat was too dry from worry to speak, so he just nodded.
"I was hoping you'd be here." She went back to sleep too fast to see how bright his face lit up.
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The Gryffindor Quidditch team had come together again. They threw themselves into the fray, healing wounds, moving bodies, and slapping all the frightened students on the back in a congratulatory way. They were proud to stand by Harry once more.
Other members of the D.A., those not mourning or too wounded to help, followed their example. All were war heroes, and so all of them didn't care one whit about the fact that they were. And they worked side by side with the kitchen elves, led by Kreacher. "For Harry Potter!" was the rallying cry for all.
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The gargoyle made no comment as Neville walked up the winding staircase to the Headmaster's office. Godric's sword was held firmly in one hand; the skin melded around the hilt, as if it had been meant for him alone. The stones shone a little brighter, too, though that may have been from the sconces lining the way.
Professor Dumbledore's portrait beamed down at him as he entered the room. "You've gotten Godric's sword, I see?"
Thoughtfully, Neville nodded. "I thought I'd put it up here, sir. It isn't mine to keep, so I won't bother trying, but I don't think it should stay with the goblins, either. One named Griphook was looking for it. I don't want to cause trouble, but it seems to me that this sword belongs to this school. Especially when it helped how it did. I have no idea if I could've killed Voldemort's snake without it."
Dumbledore's twinkling eyes observed him closely. "I owe you an apology, Neville. I believe I have underestimated you."
Neville shrugged. "Most people do, professor. Except for Harry, maybe.'
"Yes, of course. Harry is the best judge of character I know." Dumbledore hesitated before putting another question to him. "Have you seen Aberforth?"
"Not since the battle ended." Neville placed the sword reverently into its old holding place. As he closed up the glass case, his face transformed into an expression of longing. "I've only had this for a little bit, professor, but I'm sorry to see it go."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Dumbledore told him, smiling as brightly as Fawkes had once burned. "Things that belong to you have a way of coming back. Be patient."
This wasn't much comfort, as far as Neville was concerned, but he was far too used to Dumbledore's odd ways to expect to get any more out of him. "I reckon I'd better get back to my Gran. I'll leave you to your rest, sir." And he went back out the way he came.
To Dumbledore's left, Phineas snorted. "Do you really that bumbler will one day be Headmaster, Albus?"
"I do indeed," Dumbledore replied pleasantly. "I do indeed."
AN: I hope you liked it! I will put this in different sections (R/Hr, H/G, George, Percy, D/L, etc), and will choose later which I keep it under. Happy New Year! Love? Hate? Review!