Disclaimer: Everything Harry Potter belongs to our queen, JK Rowling!
Otherwise, this story is a work of fiction, and any non-HP original characters, their names and adventures are purely a product of my imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and fictitious. This story does not take place in our Muggle world as we know it, but in a world entirely its own.
Chapter Twenty-One:
Happy Middle
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The weeks that followed were like something out of a storybook.
As September turned into October and the weather grew steadily colder, Harry found himself spending nearly every free moment with Ella. They went to Thorpe Park on a free Wednesday, where Harry found that riding a roller coaster was almost as adrenaline-inducing as riding his Firebolt. They took a day trip to Kent, and spent the afternoon picking and then eating apples on a farm, which they washed down with hot cider and buttered corn. They went to late night movie screenings, appearing on set exhausted the following morning, and for once Harry found that he didn't mind – not the fatigue, nor the coffee, because spending time with Ella was a much better reason to be tired than dreams of Voldemort that kept him up at night. They hid their faces beneath disguises, sometimes Muggle and sometimes magical. At times, Robert accompanied them on their adventures and, for the first time, Harry found himself living the Muggle life he had so often watched Dudley enjoy, but had never personally experienced.
They went out on Halloween night. After admitting to Ella that he had never been trick-or-treating (the Dursleys preferring to leave him with Mrs. Figg for the night, while they took Dudley around the neighborhood), she took matters into her own hands and showed up on his doorstep late Tuesday afternoon with Robert, and his two young cousins, Stephanie and Amanda. The two girls were dressed as witches (not of the Harry Potter variety), and Ella and Robert were both donning their Hogwarts uniforms. Ella had worked her hair into something of a bushy cloud that he didn't think even Hermione could have managed without serious effort, and she was wearing sunglasses. Robert, for his part, had pulled a Gryffindor beanie low over his eyes.
"Cloak on!" Ella said brightly, as Harry stared at them, completely nonplussed. "And I hope you've got a bucket."
"Sorry?"
"If not, I have an extra here," she added, grinning, and held out a small orange pumpkin-shaped pail.
Harry dropped some candy from the bowl he was holding into Stephanie's and Amanda's outstretched pumpkins and then put the bowl down and looked at Ella and Robert incredulously.
"Come on, hurry up," Robert said, grinning. "We've got lots of houses to hit before it gets dark and I have to take these two home."
"You can't be serious," Harry said.
"Come on," Ella said brightly, "look, we've brought children! Halloween is a judgement-free zone!"
"All right then," Harry said, shrugging, and ten minutes later he had joined them on the street, straightening his own Gryffindor robe, and adjusting his hat and scarf. Ella handed him the bucket, and they set off down the block together.
"Are you Rob's movie friend too?" Stephanie asked him curiously as they walked.
"Yes," Harry said.
"So you're an actor?" Amanda chimed in.
"Uh huh." He glanced over at Robert, who mouthed, "They aren't allowed to read it yet."
"So you and Rob and Ella all go to work together?" Amanda asked. "Is it true you don't have to go to school?"
"Aren't you sad?" Stephanie asked. "I just started school! It's so much fun! I made so many friends! And we have art and stuff."
"We have art," Ella chimed in seriously. Harry laughed.
"No, we have Calculus," he supplied.
"What's that?" Amanda asked curiously.
"A really fun class where you have numbers mixed with letters, and you have to figure out mathematical equations," Robert said.
Amanda wrinkled her nose. "That's not fun at all! I don't wanna take Calculus! I'm going to skip being fifteen so I don't have to do it!"
"Me too!" Stephanie cried.
They both giggled madly and dashed up the walk of the nearest house. Harry watched as they rang the doorbell and then waited patiently until the screen door swung open and Daniyel's neighbor, dressed like Princess Leia, peaked out with a bowl of candy.
"Trick or treat!" the girls chorused.
"Aren't you both adorable!" she cooed, reaching into her bowl and dropping copious amounts of Mars bars into their pumpkins. "What kinds of magic can you do? Have you got wands?"
The girls hurried to produce their magic wands, which were topped with stars, and waved them around excitedly.
"I'm a good witch, and I have a magic unicorn!" Stephanie volunteered. "Her name's Mufflet, and I ride her everywhere! But you can't see her, because she's invisible!"
"I eat good witches for breakfast," Amanda said seriously.
"I see. That's… sweet," Princess Leia said, amused. Robert laughed.
"Come on!" Ella said brightly, and the three of them followed the girls up the walk.
"Trick or treat!" Ella said, smiling. "Us too!"
Princess Leia looked them over and burst out laughing. "Brilliant, Ella, Daniyel," she said seriously. "Really, that's excellent."
"But he's not Daniyel," Ella said seriously. "He's Harry Potter! And I'm Hermione! And Ron's here too, of course."
"I am," Harry confirmed, truthfully.
She handed them each a Mars bar, still chuckling. "You three should stop by the Community Centre tonight. They're having a costume contest."
"Are you going, Rebecca?" Ella asked.
"Wouldn't miss it. Also, I'm not Rebecca, I'm Leia. Obviously."
"Of course, my bad," Ella said.
Stephanie and Amanda, who had wandered back towards the street, screeched at them to hurry up, so they waved goodbye to Rebecca and walked back to join the girls as they ran towards the next house. Harry wondered if it would be more embarrassing or less embarrassing to do this in another neighborhood. By the time they reached the fifth house it didn't seem to matter though, since the neighbors no longer seemed to recognize them; something Ella attributed to their over-obvious disguises and a profound lack of looking properly.
By the time evening settled around them and Ella slipped off her sunglasses in the gathering darkness, their candy pails were surprisingly heavy, and Harry found that he was rather enjoying himself. Though considering he enjoyed any time spent in Ella's company, it was hard to say whether the activity itself or her excitement about it had been the cause. Robert, who had promised to return the girls to their parents by nighttime, collected his disappointed cousins and bid them goodnight.
"Coming back?" Ella asked, as he transferred both of their candy buckets into his backpack. "Wanna drop by the contest?"
"No it's OK, you guys have fun. I'm going to turn in early."
They watched him walk away, both girls holding on to one of his hands, until they vanished into the night. Harry smiled. Things here were so… normal. If it hadn't been for Voldemort, how many Halloweens would he have spent, just like this? But it was a futile thought. Voldemort was what he was. And the last Halloween at Hogwarts had been a bloody massacre. He could only hope that the next one would be better.
"Should we turn in early too?" he asked Ella. "We have an early day tomorrow."
"Nah," she said. "We should hit up that costume contest."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Not entirely," she admitted. "But what's life without a little risk, Harry?"
He wanted to say that it was pleasant, and relaxing, and altogether very nice, and that honestly he had taken enough risks to last a lifetime; but Ella wanted to check out the contest, and he wanted to spend more time with Ella, so they dropped off their buckets of candy at Daniyel's house and made their way to the Community Centre, which also doubled as a library and, apparently, a party space.
The atmosphere around the Community Centre was one of great excitement as they walked up to the big square building. Music and enthusiastic voices drifted out from the doors, which had been propped wide open. People were milling around outside, chatting and drinking cider, and playing games that had been set up in the parking lot, which was also lined with jack-o-lanterns and strung with glowing orange lights and inflatable ghosts. Children slightly older than Amanda and Stephanie chased each other through the lot, shrieking excitedly. There were stands selling food, and drinks, and raffle tickets. People in costumes were everywhere, and no one gave them a second glance.
Harry and Ella wended their way through the crowd and bought two cups of cider from a stand in the corner. Ella looked around, clutching her cup tightly, her eyes aglow with excitement.
"This is pretty cool. They're having a whole festival."
"I suppose," Harry said. He had a complicated relationship with Halloween, no matter how he looked at it, but it was nice to see other people enjoying it.
She took hold of his hand and they wandered through the milling crowd, stopping at several booths where Ella made attempts at carving pumpkins and throwing rings at bottles while Harry looked on. She eventually convinced him to try his hand at darts, and he managed to pop several balloons in a quick succession, which resulted in a small stuffed plushie for Ella. Harry thought it looked rather like a cross between an orange ghost and a pumpkin.
"Orange Ghost is a legit name for this, whatever it is," Ella agreed.
As they stepped away from the booth, an announcement blared across the lot inviting everyone in costume to line up to be judged. Ella grabbed Harry's hand again and dragged him along, and they joined the queue between two almost-teenage kids dressed as pirates, and a group of Star Wars cosplayers that Harry realized, on second glance, included Rebecca in her Princess Leia attire. She grinned at them and he raised his hand in a half wave.
"What happened to your Ron?" she called.
"Took the children home," Ella called back over the music. "We'll have to make do without him."
They quieted down then as the contest coordinator announced the rules for judging, which were simple enough – the costumes that received the loudest round of applause would win. Following this announcement, Harry and Ella lost spectacularly to a group of three pre-teens, who were also dressed as the Golden Trio, but were not missing Ron, and were no older than twelve. At this point Rebecca and Ella had both started laughing uncontrollably, and Harry had been forced to grab Ella by the arm and pull her away before people looked too closely and started to recognize them.
"But you're Harry!"
She sniggered as they made their way past a small maze built out of haystacks and around the back of the building, where the crowd finally thinned out. She pointed a finger at him, her hand shaking as she tried to suppress her laughter. "You can't lose a costume contest to someone else pretending to be you. That's hilarious! Isn't that your actual uniform?"
"It is," Harry agreed, also starting to laugh. "And you're Ella. You have one job, and that's pretending to be Hermione."
"Oh my God, you're right." She doubled over, laughing. "I should probably be fired!"
They stood there, sniggering, for a bit longer, until they had regained their breath. Harry couldn't help but grin as he looked at her. There was something about Ella that made his whole world come alive.
"Check this out, Harry," she said promptly, and before he could respond, she had taken a running leap towards the wall of the Community Centre, launched herself into the air, and released a burst of magical energy from her hands, which propelled her up onto the roof. She scrambled over the edge and then turned back around and grinned down at him. Harry sighed, glanced around to make sure that they were actually alone, then took out his wand and muttered, "Ascendio!" and raised himself slowly onto the roof.
"Don't do that," he told her sternly. "You have to be more careful with your magic."
"You did it when you were little though, didn't you?"
"Only by accident."
"All right." She walked across the roof, until she was looking down at the festival spread out below them, and sat down in the shadows of the rooftop. Harry sat down next to her, watching as the remains of the contest queue drifted apart.
"You're really good at wandless magic," he said. Or at least, he reflected, she was really good at everything that was big and loud, and involved quick bursts of force. She still had trouble channeling her magic through the wand, or maintaining any spell for more than a few moments, though she was improving dramatically the more they worked together.
"Thanks," she said, smiling. "I still can't believe I'm doing it at all, honestly. And I know I'm pretty terrible with your wand."
"You're not bad."
"Uh huh," she said dubiously. She glanced at him, and he reached out and clasped her hand. Her fingers felt warm against his. She smiled. "Did you have fun?"
"It was probably the best Halloween I've ever had," he admitted. "Including the one where Quirrell let the troll into the dungeons next to the Slytherin common room."
She laughed again, and Harry found himself getting helplessly drawn into a steady stream of memories of Halloweens past: Quirrell running the length of the Great Hall, the glowing blue candles of Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday Party, the torn strips of the Fat Lady's portrait after Sirius had made his first attempt on Wormtail's life, and, finally, the shocked silence of the Great Hall when Dumbledore had called his name for the Triwizard Tournament. The beginning of the end.
And then, something he had been trying to avoid entirely: a flash of green light… mixed with a cold, cruel laugh. Harry shuddered.
"Your parents?" she asked softly.
"Yeah." He wondered how she could read him so well. "I didn't know it happened on Halloween," he admitted, gazing distractedly at the bright lights of the festival below. "Not until Hagrid told me when I was eleven. You would think that would've made it a terrible day from then on, but strangely it didn't. I guess because I didn't really remember it, didn't associate them… so that first Halloween at Hogwarts, that was kind of amazing. But then they all went downhill from there. The Chamber of Secrets. Sirius trying to break into Gryffindor Tower… though I guess that wasn't so bad, in retrospect." He laughed softly and glanced over at Ella, who had fixed her dark brown eyes on his and was watching him intently. "I guess it's just nice to do something normal, you know, on Halloween. Where no one gets murdered, or petrified, or puts my name in the Goblet of Fire, or anything..."
He trailed off lamely, feeling like he was babbling. He had never really talked about his parents, not even with Ron and Hermione, but it was so easy to talk to Ella. He found that he wanted to share things with her that he had never spoken aloud.
"It's OK," she said, "I get it. I can't imagine how it must've been, to never know them."
He took a deep breath, the lights below blurring slightly. "Sometimes I wonder if it's better that I can't actually remember them. I think it hurts less that way. But that sounds terrible… and besides, I want to know them. More than anything."
"I think," she said slowly, "that however you feel about it, it's OK. And it's not strange to feel both ways at once. They aren't at odds." She leaned her head against his shoulder. "You've dealt with so much crap, Harry. But you handle it all so well, it's kind of amazing, you know. And you're supposed to do the right thing, I guess. That's the whole point, isn't it? You do it, and you handle it with grace. No matter what. But you can't just keep saving everyone but yourself. You deserve to be happy too. Anyway, that's kind of why I wanted to do this. Whatever happens when you… when you leave. At least you'll have one good Halloween to remember. This is… how they're supposed to be." Her voice broke and she grew silent, gazing away from him, out into the night.
"Thanks for this," Harry mumbled. He glanced at her, stunned still by the good fortune of the time they had managed to carve out. He could have never, in a million years, imagined someone quite like her. And the thing he had most wanted to ask, but was most afraid of hearing the answer to, burst forth before he could stop himself. "Ella… do you think I'm just… meant to be a story? Here? I…"
He broke off, his question hanging heavily in the night, and she turned around then, until her eyes were locked on his.
"No," she whispered. There was no hesitation in her words. "Of course not. You're real, Harry. You are. You always have been."
Her eyes sparkled with reflected lights as she held his gaze, seemingly glowing with promise; and he stared back at her, his heart rate quickening, the world around her fading from existence, paling in comparison to her light.
He leaned down, closing the distance between them, and kissed her softly. They lost themselves for a while, aware only of each other. Her hair tangled around his fingers and she felt warm, pressed up against him. Her breath was sweet upon his tongue, and she smelled faintly of cider, of pumpkins, of the fresh scent of fall. He reached for her, his hands getting lost in her hair, brushing past her tie, as his fingers trailed gently down past her collarbone. He could feel her heart racing wildly against her chest, her heartbeat mirroring his own. She gasped softly as he slipped his fingers underneath the clasp of her robes, and he drew back, unsure, but she looked at him intently and nodded once, and then her mouth was locked on his once more, and all he could think, as their embrace blossomed into a dance, was that she was beautiful. So beautiful. They held each other tightly; and as he lost himself within her arms, he was grateful for her, for the time they had, for this moment.
He jolted abruptly awake to the insistent ringing of his cell phone and squinted into a glorious sunrise. Ella was huddled up against him, and he was colder than he had ever been in his life, including that time in the lake. He glanced at the phone as Ella opened her eyes and gazed around blearily. As he scrolled through several texts from Daniyel's parents demanding to know where he was, and then stumbled awkwardly to his feet, pulling Ella up alongside him, he reflected that spending the night on the roof of the Community Centre had probably been an exceeding stupid thing to do.
Still, he couldn't help but grin at Ella as she rubbed her eyes and mumbled, "Did we actually fall asleep here? Crap."
He grasped her hand and pulled her to the back edge of the roof. As they carefully made their way down, while running through a list of potential excuses aloud, and made their way past the now-empty booths still set up around the parking lot and looking much less festive in the cold blue light of dawn, they couldn't help but smile at each other.
Whatever happens, Harry decided, it had been worth it, just to have that one night together. And he still felt that way later, as he stood, ashamed, in Daniyel's foyer, making feeble excuses to Daniyel's furious parents. And later still, when he and Ella both developed horrible coughs and he had to ask Sirius for some Pepper-Up Potion, which Sirius handed over with a slightly raised eyebrow ("You both got sick practicing magic outside? Don't these Muggles have appropriate winter attire? Do you want your cloak?").
"I can't wear a cloak around, Sirius," Harry said, amused. "I'm supposed to be blending in, not standing out more. I think Daniyel's more famous than I am." Then he had dissolved into a coughing fit and been forced to gulp down half the burning potion as Sirius looked on in some concern.
"So how is it going, the magic lessons?" Sirius asked, as Harry put down the vial, and waved the steam out of his eyes. "Is Ella making progress?"
"Definitely," Harry choked out. He waited for the potion to take effect before continuing. "She's got a real talent for wandless magic. I don't think even Hermione could... anyway, I'm trying to teach her to have better control over it and use the wand to channel more."
"That's great, Harry!" Sirius said. "It sounds like you're a good teacher. Dumbledore thinks it's best that she can fully control her powers by the time we get you back here. But then again, Daniyel can always help her out after you switch back, I suppose. But keep working on it. May I suggest you do it indoors from now on, though?"
"Right," Harry said, momentarily struck by the thought of leaving Ella – a feeling he buried quickly and hoped Sirius hadn't seen on his face.
And work on it they did – for days and hours on end. They practiced in Daniyel's room, or in secluded corners of the park (wrapped in puffy winter coats as the weather grew colder), or at the studio after everyone had left. Robert, who had good-naturally volunteered to be the target of a wide array of spells and charms, never complained as Ella repeatedly Stunned, or Full-Body-Bound him, or threw him across the room at piles of cushions Harry had conjured up.
"Brilliant," Robert told her, after she Revived him for the fifth time in a row, late on Friday night. He got gingerly to his feet and sat down on the edge of the trampoline. They were practicing in the empty stunt training room.
"I think that's enough," Harry said hurriedly. "You've got the hang of it now, Ella, let's give Rob a break."
"I'm all right." Robert grinned. "Ella's just enabling me to fulfill my daily nap requirement."
Ella sat down next to Robert on the trampoline, twirling Harry's wand. "You sure you can't do any magic, Rob? You should try again. You never know."
"I don't think it works like that," Robert said, and Harry looked over curiously as he collected the cushions. He had often wondered if Robert was disappointed that he hadn't also discovered some latent magical abilities. They had met up shortly after the day in the park, and Harry had volunteered his wand, but Robert hadn't been able to cast anything successfully. Between Ella discovering her magic, and Ella and Harry dating and thus spending more time alone together, he supposed it was probably lonely for Robert to be left out.
"It's all right," Robert continued. "It can be your thing, I don't mind."
"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice, which made Harry realize that she probably shared his feelings. "It would've been great if we could all do it together."
"I'm hardly missing out. You've been Stunning me all day!"
"And you're such a good sport about it!" Harry said, walking over to them. "Ron sure complained a lot more when I practiced Stunners on him."
They let themselves out of the stunt room and made their way down the fluorescently-lit hallway towards the exit. There were still a surprising amount of people bustling around, and as they glanced through the open door to the soundstage on their way past, they saw the key grip, Jane, checking off items on a clipboard as she glanced over a large pile of video equipment that had amassed at her feet.
"Setting up for next week, I expect," Robert said, as they continued down the hall.
The production was finally venturing outside the set for the first time since Harry's arrival, and would be shooting overnights on location in Alfriston, a small village south of London, which would serve as the backdrop for a battle scene set halfway through the film; a scene which Harry hoped would not in any way actually occur back home. But considering how far the film he was working on had now diverged from events he knew to be happening back at Hogwarts, he was hard-pressed to find much common ground. The world of Harry Potter that Ella and Robert had known in the past was now entirely unconnected and unfamiliar, and was as much of a story to Harry as to anyone else.
"I don't know why we couldn't do this back in the summer when it wasn't freezing," Ella said. "It's going to be bloody brutal."
"You can just cuddle with Harry if you get cold," Robert said with a grin.
"Shut it!" Ella cried as Harry blushed furiously. "And I told you, no one knows we're"– she lowered her voice significantly –"dating. So shush."
"I'm sure no one knows," Robert said seriously. "So, will you be dating this weekend?"
"Ella will be learning Incendio," Harry said. "Which I'm not sure she needs to know, but she insists. Come with us?"
"I would, but I actually prefer that my eyebrows stay on my face."
"Thanks, appreciate the vote of confidence," Ella said, rolling her eyes.
By the time Sunday night came around though, Harry was also of the opinion that he appreciated his eyebrows. Not that Ella had actually burned off his eyebrows, mind, but after he had been forced to put out several small fires in Daniyel's secluded backyard, he was incredibly grateful that the neighbors could not see into it, that Daniyel's parents were out for the day, and that no one had called (or maybe more importantly, had needed to call) the fire department.
"Nice job," he told Ella, as he put out the umpteenth fire of the day, and then put away the wand before she got any more ideas. "We'll work on the counter-curse next time."
"Not now?" She sounded disappointed.
"I think you've done enough for one day, and Daniyel's parents will be back soon."
The trooped inside the house, where Ella played with Binka with a surprising amount of energy while Harry dug through the fridge until he managed to produce some leftover cottage pie. He heated it up quickly and then carried two steaming plates over to the kitchen table. Ella plopped gratefully down opposite him and attacked the plate ravenously.
"Dan's mum's special cottage pie?" she asked happily in between bites.
"The one and only," confirmed Harry, who was a fan.
"So what's the plan?" Ella asked, after inhaling her plate of food. "Should we stay up really late and sleep until four tomorrow, so we can show up perfectly well rested and ready to do our best work?"
Harry agreed that this was a reasonable plan, and they settled on the sitting room couch with an assortment of snacks. Ella shuffled through the movie collection and popped Narnia into the DVD player, and by the time Daniyel's parents returned from their day trip to Bath and joined them, they were watching Edmund's rescue from the witch's lair with baited breath. However staying up all night was easier said than done, especially after a day full of spell-casting, and by the time they had finished Narnia and started on Batman Begins, the movie had begun to blur together in an incredibly confusing way, and when Harry next glanced around, sunlight was streaming through the window, and it was just past eight in the morning.
Once he was awake, he found it was impossible to go back to sleep, so he gently extricated himself from the couch and Ella's still sleeping form and accepted breakfast from Mrs. Bluelake, who glanced at him with amused sympathy and said, "Don't worry, you're young. I'm sure you'll sleep all day tomorrow," before departing for work. He spent the next several hours quietly playing with Binka, reading through the newest textbook Sirius had given him the previous week, and contemplating the safest way to teach Ella the counter-curse for the Fire-Making Spell.
By the time Harry and Ella got out of their shared town car and joined Robert on a small street in Alfriston later that evening, Harry was already thinking longingly of Daniyel's bed. However, since he had no hopes of seeing it again for at least the next several hours, he allowed himself to be led to a row of trailers, where Marlene was waiting with her makeup kit. Before long, his face, hair, and clothes were camera-ready and, ironically, he felt nothing like himself in them. But he had already been here nearly six months, and by now this was nothing new.
Over the last few months, Harry had discovered that film shoots were not nearly as exciting as he had imagined them to be in his childhood, at odd moments when he had snuck into the sitting room to watch Bodger & Badger from the edge of the stairs (so that Dudley couldn't reach him). They involved long hours, a lot of waiting around, a lot of doing the same thing over and over again, and a lot of unsatisfactory food. The soundstage also tended to become sweltering after they all spent several hours underneath the scorching lights.
Being on location was, if possible, even more of a letdown. It was now mid-November, and the night was, as Ella had predicted, freezing. They were grateful that their wardrobes included both robes and cloaks, but after several hours spent running around the high street, aiming curses at a persistent group of Death Eaters, Harry could barely feel his fingers. Or his ears. As he, Robert, and Ella wandered over to the craft table sometime around 10PM, they found that even the coffee and tea were not immune from the chill, and had become rather lukewarm, even inside their thermal carafes. Ella sighed with disappointment and offered her barely touched cup of tea to Harry, who downed it anyway, since it fulfilled his caffeine requirement, and then walked back towards Carlos, who was waving her over impatiently for her close-ups.
Harry and Robert collected some hand warmers and blankets and walked over to end of the street, where they settled down against the side of a small shop with blacked-out windows and looked on as Carlos directed Ella to the middle of the road, where the dolly grip was laying out a set of tracks. Ella nodded seriously as Carlos gestured down the street, and as Harry and Robert watched absently, the crew finished setting up the camera, and the camera operator jumped atop it. The dolly grip pushed it along the track, and when Carlos called, "Action!" Ella took off down the road, glancing back over her shoulder, her expression one of terrified determination.
Harry gazed at her face as he watched Carlos put her through her paces several times. The sight of her still caused his stomach to jump wildly, and his heart to speed up in his chest, and he avoided, once again, thinking about how he would feel when he would be gone, when this would all be over. It was easy to forget sometimes, as he traipsed around Muggle London with Ella, that in the other world, which at times seemed so distant, Voldemort, and not the girl before him, was what waited at the end of the road.
And he knew he would do it, the right thing, as she had so eloquently put it. There was no other way forward, after all, and he couldn't stay in the in-between with Ella forever. He wasn't sure he could even say it was bravery that drove him – you could hardly say it was a brave choice, when it was the only choice. The only reasonable choice. But they had walked into this knowingly. Ella, he knew, understood intrinsically. Someday, maybe not today, but someday soon, he would be forced to trade. Ella for Voldemort. Happiness for… for who knew what. And she wouldn't expect any less. But even so, as he squeezed the hand warmers tightly and gazed at Ella, her features shimmering slightly in the glow of the lights, he thought that maybe these moments, at least, were enough.
A/N: This was a really fun chapter to write! I had actually skipped it for weeks because I wasn't sure I could do it justice – this moment I wanted to give Harry and Ella. But I think, in the end, it came out all right. Actually, it's one of my favorites, somehow. And I hope you guys enjoyed it. Thank you for reading. I do hope I fixed Halloween a bit :P
Also on a random note, I can't really speak for where most of my chapter titles come from, but this one was inspired by a poignant little section from This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel, which is a very good and, I think, very important book.
Thank you as always for reading, and for everything you guys do. Please leave a review, if you can!
Rina