A/N: Huge thanks to my wonderful beta: quickhidetherum for sticking with me and the story. I am truly trying to wrap things up, but these characters have a mind of their own and are refusing to do what I say so, I do what they want for now. Hope it's still enjoyable to you. Thank you so very mch for all the reviews, kudo's, faves and follows. I am so happy that you guys are enjoying the story. For those of you who are also reading TEL, hope you like the snippets that I dropped into this chapter and also TEL will return in March I hope.

Chapter 11

There were still patches of snow on the ground but spring was crawling, fighting it's way out of it's wintery slumber. Nature was determined to go on. A dandelion fought it's way between the cobblestones on Diagon Ally it's head turned up, searching for the sun. Harry stepped on the budding flower, then caught Pansy looking at him. He couldn't help his anger. The melting snow meant he would be forced through another May, another summer. He didn't imagine that going well. He swallowed, willing his lips back into a smile and held the door of the ice cream shop open for her. Pansy rolled her eyes but her fingers brushed his when she walked by. Theo Nott, Hermione, the Delacour sisters and Luna Lovegood followed her.

It was painful inside the shop, the knowledge that Florean Fortescue was gone gnawed at Harry in an overly familiar way. As his little group stood, uncertainty, between the door and the tables he thought that he was beyond grief, there was simply too much of it and he felt small and hideous and he and Theo stood behind the women and Harry didn't know if they were hiding behind them. He caught Pansy's eye again she looked like she wanted to flee. Harry squeezed his eyes shut for a second, incredibly grateful that at least someone in this shop felt the same way he did. Theo walked over to the nearest table and sat down looking around curiously. Luna followed him and after her, the rest of them, as if Luna had given some sort of command and they, soldiers that they were, followed. Only Gabrielle, Fleur's younger sister, looked mildly bored.

They ordered and Harry took his cup of ice with trembling fingers. It felt like he was holding some secret piece of his childhood, the only one he had ever known, and it was calling out to him only he was too hardened, too solid now to truly hear it. He took up his spoon, placed a too big chunk of ice cream into his mouth and almost choked on it.

The shop was slowly and steadily filling with customers. The new shop owner, a man that looked nothing like Florean with his glasses and carefully constructed smile, seemed a bit put out by the sheer number of them. The shop had been all but empty when they stepped inside and the new owner had seemed to prefer it that way. Harry couldn't help thinking it was their little group that was bringing the onlookers in.

He sat in-between Pansy, who was licking her own pink ice cream cone, and Gabrielle. The girl looked put out by something, her arms were crossed, and she was glaring at her older sister clearly willing Fleur to notice her. When that didn't happen, she stamped her foot and slumped in her chair. Pansy grinned at her with an amused glint in her eyes, but Harry found himself unable to look at her for long. She was too clean, too perfect with her long blond hair and unblemished skin. When her ice cream arrived she grinned and started eating it, savoring the taste with her eyes closed. She was still a child in many ways and Harry felt jealous because he could not remember being like a child, ever. Not like that.

Pansy's knee kept ticking against his nervously, the only sign that she was uncomfortable. She had counted on Theo being there, but now they were in a group of seven total. He imagined that was too much for Pansy who had been hiding from everyone and everything ever since the Final Battle. He put a hand on her knee hoping she would see the gesture as comforting but she only glared at him until he removed his hand, and resumed listening to Fleur who was talking about a choice of school for Gabrielle. Apparently Beauxbatons had been rejected, or had rejected Gabrielle, Harry didn't quite follow, and now the options were limited.

They had run into Fleur, Hermione, Luna and Gabrielle as they waited for Theo outside the ice cream shop. The three girls appeared out of the used book shop next to them, like some miracle, and Harry quickly invited them to join in. Now all of them sat in front of a large window that looked new, on seats that felt new and ate ice cream that was perhaps not new. Harry sat back and allowed himself to exhale. Whatever he feared (and what he feared always included, death and blood and pain) was not going to happen. There was a conversation going on, multiple of them in fact, Luna was filling Theo in on Japan and Gabrielle and Fleur were arguing in a mix of French and English with Pansy looking on with an amused smile. He let out another breath.

It was wonderful to be surrounded by people again, people who didn't need anything from him. Who were content with him just sitting there and not talking. It reminded him a bit of being at the Weasley's and that memory shattered the pleasant lull that had been luring him in. He most likely would never sit at a Weasley table. He looked around the shop in hopes of hiding the pain that thought brought with it and balled a fist. Pansy glanced his way and her knee came to rest against his. Harry sat straighter.

The shop reminded him of the excitement he felt when at thirteen he had ran away from home and spent his days in freedom, carefree and filled with wonder that made him feel like it was all possible. A life without the Dursleys, a life without Voldemort, without destinies. He had never felt that free again and as he looked around the table the longing for that freedom sat in his throat and crept to his heart. He wanted to turn and kiss Pansy and look into her face and see the promise of that freedom in her eyes. He wanted to make his own table, fill it with people he was not ashamed around and still have Ron and Ginny and George and most of all Fred, at that table with him.

A group of giggling girls passed by, staring and whispering and then sat as close to their group as they could ordering their own ice cream. Hermione glared at them. She was sitting next to Theo who was listening to Luna's account of how Kappa's were in fact friendly and where one should best look for them while in Japan, with what looked like genuine interest. Her dirty blond hair hung over her shoulders hiding her cherry shaped earrings and the scar on her cheek. Harry put a hand on Hermione's arm.

'You ok?' he asked. It was easier to ask about her feelings than show his own. He thought he was projecting his own anger and fear onto her because Hermione looked wounded, her eyes were blazing with a light he had never seen there before and her posture was stiff. She shifted and twisted her arm away from him. When she looked at him the frown was gone from her face and she was smiling again. The smile felt forced to Harry, as if she had painted it on. Of course, this was Hermione, and thus the fake smile was a perfect painting. He shook off his unease. This was Hermione and she was fine, she always was. She had to be. He realized with a pang of guilt that he needed her to be fine, needed her to be the Hermione who scolded him for not having read a book, to be the Hermione who could argue with him about his glasses and spell work. Friendship and bravery, she once told him, those were the important things, and she had made good on those words and now he wanted her to be his shield again.

'I'm fine,' she said, still glaring in the direction of the giggling girls. 'Ron and I set a date.' There was something in her tone of voice that reminded Harry of the time she had taken Cormac McLaggen to Slughorn's party, the same kind of fierce determination that told Harry not to ask questions.

'That's great,' Harry said.

'Yes.' She paused and bit her lip then added, 'We miss you at the Burrow.'

'I wasn't sure I was welcome.' It was the truth. Both Ron and Hermione had felt distant lately. He figured Ron was simply mad at him and Hermione had probably chosen her fiancé's side. He felt hollow thinking about it and so tried not to. There were some days now, when he sat with Pansy in that endless waiting hall, or watched her put on make-up to face another day, when Harry could imagine some form of a future. The shape was still far away, foreign and frightening, but he could not deny that it was there, shaping up like a mirage in a hot summer, beckoning to him and holding out possibility on a silver platter.

But he could not imagine a future without Ron and Hermione at his side. The mirage he pictured only became real when he thought of his two best friends. And yet, the reality was that they were drifting apart. He wanted them back, Hermione and Ron, wanted to silence the voice inside him that whispered that they had only been good comrades in war time and now peace had come and brought a veil that they could not fit under together, much like they could not fit under his Invisibility cloak anymore. He had no idea how to get his friends back, how to make the mirage future real. Pansy was a part of it, yes, but she was not enough, he could not ask her to be enough, to be his everything. He gripped the edge of the table picturing a future in which all he would get was the polite and distant Ron of the past few weeks and this secretive, angry Hermione.

'You are welcome at the Burrow, Harry.' Hermione frowned. 'Where were you this past few weeks? I went by Grimmauld's but you weren't there.'

'I've been at the Ministry,' Harry said. He could feel Pansy listening in on the conversation. 'Pansy and I have been trying to get Kingsley to talk to me. I want to see if I can get Snape acquitted,' he said with pride. Maybe he could rope Hermione and Ron into this new mission somehow, he could use their help.

Hermione's face hardened. Theo turned as well, his eyes were wide.

'You are what?'

'You need to stop,' Hermione bit out and Theo frowned at her. She glared at Pansy. 'I thought I told you to ma- to talk to him?' Pansy set up straighter and rolled her eyes.

'Your turn, Granger,' she said. 'Obviously he won't listen to me.'

Harry looked from one woman to the other and grit his teeth. So, they thought they could run his life for him. He wished the idea filled him with rage but all it did was fill him with a sort of calm, a surrender. He would live and do whatever they said and there would be no need to bother about anything. But then Ginny's face rose in his mind and he remembered how much he had hurt the both of them thinking that he could live and do whatever Ginny said to do. The idea had been as tempting as the idea to follow Pansy's lead but he knew that if he allowed that, at some point he would rebel, break and break violently, and then he would break Pansy too.

'You both don't understand,' he said. 'I need to do this. It's not right, I need to… I need to make it right.'

Hermione leaned her elbows on the table and was about to open her mouth when Theo interrupted her.

'I think it's a great idea,' he said sounding serious. He looked at Harry, there was no grin, mocking, friendly, or otherwise on his face for the first time since Harry had seen him with Draco at the Ministry. 'I want to help,' he said. 'How can I help?'

'See?' Harry said and gave the women a triumphant glance. 'Theo agrees.'

Theo nodded.

Pansy's lips formed a thin line. 'Of course he does, you're both idiots,' she murmured. Theo glared at her.

'It's not about-' he started.

'You need to drop it Harry, I mean it,' Hermione said. The steel in her voice cut across the table silencing even Fleur and Gabrielle. 'At least for now, especially now.'

'Why?' Harry asked 'Because you and Ron say so?'

Hermione blinked, her cheeks turning red. 'I don't see how Ron has anything to do with it,' she said. Her fingers traveled over her left hand to the ring on her finger and she turned it a number of times as if reassuring herself that it was still there. Then she glowered at Harry once more. 'You need to stop because…you'll ruin…' she stopped suddenly and stared at the table. Harry recognized the signs, she was biting her lip, staring fixedly at one point, her fingers fidgeting in her lap. She was holding back a lecture. The sight was so endearing, so familiar, that he grinned without meaning to. Hermione shot him a warning look.

'Ruin what?' Theo asked. 'What can he possibly ruin?'

'How do you think this looks-,' Hermione started turning to Theo fully now.

'I don't care how it looks.' Harry interrupted. He settled more comfortably into his chair and prepared to argue.

'The trials are in full swing,' Hermione continued in a furious whisper, ignoring him. 'Aurors are on high alert, there are people being sent to Azkaban still and you're inside the Ministry everyday shouting about Snape. They'll..'she stopped and crossed her arms before her chest looking down and shaking her head so that her curls fell in front of her face partly obscuring it. 'They might make you testify.'

Harry shrugged. 'So? I'll testify,' he said. The idea had not crossed his mind before but now that he considered it, the thought of testifying was tempting. He would be back in the thick of things, there would me a clear goal again. He would not have to think of his studies, of Ron and Hermione and Pansy, of the train that was waiting for him at King's Cross to bring him to Dudley, to a life he could not possibly know how to lead. Hermione's eyes softened as she watched him.

'You already did your part, Harry. They can't force you to do any more,' she said looking at him as if he was about to break. Harry hated that look.

'Why not?' he asked. ' I can still do something, I can be-'he was about to say 'important' but he bit his tongue and glanced around the table. Conversation had stopped and all of them were looking at him, Harry felt his spine uncurl, his breath coming in a shallow, slow rhythm. Pansy looked at him steadily, her dark eyes narrowed, her body still as if she was afraid to move.

'If you testify,' she said quietly,' they'll make you show them proof.'

Hermione nodded grimly. Then she pushed her curls out of her face and sat up taking a bite form her half melted ice cream.

Harry felt the fire of defiance freeze inside him. He looked from Hermione who still looked grim but seemed to come out of whatever rage had gripped her, to Pansy who looked like she wanted to disappear. They had him cornered. He refused to show Snape's memories to anyone and both women knew that. And Pansy was right if he would be called before the Wizengamot to testify and if he talked about Snape, he would have to show them those memories. That felt like betrayal. He sighed, he would have to find another way. He would find some other way.

Theo and Gabrielle looked curiously between the two women as well. Only Luna seemed calm, looking out of the window at the grim streets outside. All of them wore the marks of war. It was in Hermione's eyes, Theo's ever present grin. He knew it was in the way Luna stared out of the window her whole body turned, clearly wanting no part in the conversation. Only Gabrielle looked undisturbed, a bit shaken by the turn of the conversation perhaps, but otherwise she looked fine. A twelve year old girl whose only concern was the trouble she had put herself in at school. She turned to Fleur eager to resume the argument and said something in French but Fleur silenced her with a glance. What leaped out at Harry was how fine, how unblemished, how whole she looked. He was about to get mad at her, he could feel the anger stir inside him but then he remembered how frail she had looked under the water, remembered his determination to save her, save Hermione and Ron as well. He wanted to be that man again, the one who saved them all. That man wouldn't have to deal with Dudley or return to Grimmauld Place and finally clean out Sirius' things. That man could go on another grand adventure with his friends. That man would also be a coward and running away. Coward. He had shouted that word at Snape across fields of time and memory and murder and now that same voice was shouting the word back at him.

'So what's that school in Amsterdam like?' he asked Ganrielle, breaking the tense silence that had made the young new owner of the ice cream shop look at their table with worry. Gabrielle shook out her hair and glared at Fleur.

'Only the best school there is,' she said in broken but articulate English.

Fleur sighed. 'You are not going, you're too young.'

'She has you there,' Harry said. Gabrielle turned her furious glare to him.

'See, Harry agrees,' Fleur said giving Harry a radiant smile. The two women resumed arguing under their breaths.

'We're going to Antwerp,' Pansy said to Hermione. 'Soon.' Hermione nodded shaking off the last bits of darkness around her and turned to listen in on the conversation between the two sisters. Pansy sat back and took up her ice cream. Something passed between the two women a wordless understanding that was evident in the slump of Pansy's shoulders, the way Hermione's eyes settled on her without turning to slits.

'I hope you have a good trip,' she said.

'Millicent has a beauty parlor. She could use the publicity of doing a wedding.'

'I'll think about it,' Hermione said. 'Thank you.'

Harry sat back and allowed the conversations around the table to wash over him.

Another puzzle piece had fallen into place. He didn't exactly know what that piece was and there was no way he was going to give up on the idea of exonerating Snape, he would have to speak to Theo about it, but something switched inside him. He remembered that adventures were scary sometimes, that they used to scare him. Before gambling with his life became a thing that he did on a regular basis. He would not be a coward, he owed that much to the dead. He owed it to himself. His new life could be around the corner of he would let it take shape and perhaps in that he could give back to those who were gone because of him. He would build his own table, he decided and he looked at the members of his little group and felt freedom.