I do not own Harry Potter or gain anything from writing this other than the opportunity of expanding on an already brilliant universe for my own entertainment, and hopefully yours.

A True Finish

The sound of a clearing throat finally had their lips moving apart, though they stayed in their position of entwinement against the wall when they looked to the source.

A crowd stood at the end of the corridor, watching the pair with a mixture of annoyed, surprised, confused and hopeful looks. Professor McGonagall just looked impatient; the one who cleared her throat, if Daphne was not mistaken. Tracey was there, clutching the note Daphne had written in her hand. Hermione and Ron stood gapping. The one Daphne was looking at was Ginny. Somehow the murderous look on her face didn't worry her much, considering what Daphne had just been through.

'Well?' McGonagall asked shortly. 'What happened? I take it you were successful?'

Daphne and Harry shared a look, she was pleased that he made no move to release her despite the crowd watching them, including his angry ex-girlfriend.

'Er, yeah, we were,' Harry said, a slow smile spreading on his face as if he only now realised what he was saying. 'He's gone. For good this time. Voldemort is no more.'

McGonagall looked as if that's what she expected to hear, nodding gratefully.

'Fifty points to Gryffindor and Slytherin,' she said.

'Fifty points?!' Ron suddenly shouted incredulously. 'Fifty bloody points each for vanquishing Voldemort? That's it?!'

'Oh shut up, Weasley,' McGonagall snapped. 'As if the points mean anything at all this year. Shall I just award Potter and Greengrass the house cup and be done with it? Fine! It's theirs! Now inform all the houses that there is to be a celebration tonight. A long overdue one, I might add!'

Some of the crowd cheered, professors mostly, and a handful of DA members that seemed to have tagged along. If they wanted to approach Harry and Daphne they must have decided it could wait, considering the continued closeness of the couple on the floor. They received a few cat-calls through the cheers as the lion's share of the crowd left them to go celebrate. It felt incredibly anticlimactic after what Daphne and Harry had just been through. It brought to mind what Harry said, that everyone had already treated things like they were finished. Almost as if they'd washed their hands of it and were just waiting for Harry to get rid of the slight inconvenience that was haunting the school before they made it official. If they saw everything that just happened maybe they wouldn't be so casual about it.

A handful of people remained behind, those that were closest to Harry and Daphne. Though the first to approach was the angriest of the group. Ginny stomped right up to them, and Daphne couldn't help but wish she hadn't dropped her wand while snogging Harry Potter. Yet she made no move to retrieve it. That would mean letting go of Harry.

Instead of doing anything to them, Ginny picked up the broom off the ground. 'That's my broom,' she said shortly.

Someone guffawed from behind her. Probably Ron based on the 'Ow!' that came right after.

'Er, right, I kind of just summoned it in a hurry,' Harry said nervously. 'Sorry.'

Ginny smacked him lightly on the head with the bristles. Despite the anger she was still showing, tears leaked out of her eyes, and Daphne almost let go of Harry. She would've if Neville hadn't stepped up beside her and put an arm around her shoulder.

'I hope we can still be friends.' The words came out of Ginny's mouth as if speaking brought her closer to a full on cry, and she looked to be trying very hard not to do that. 'I already knew, you know. I just wish you didn't lie to me.'

'I didn't,' Daphne said quickly. 'Ginny, that was our first kiss.'

Ginny shook her head, a tear falling with the motion. 'That's not the lie I was talking about.'

She retreated, whether she was afraid she'd start crying in earnest or because she had nothing more to say. Daphne had more she could say, she could defend herself and say she never lied. Even when she said Harry would be Ginny's in the end. It's what she thought was true at the time, even if it did end up being wrong.

'Don't worry,' Neville said, already heading after her, 'I'll look after her.'

'I'm sure you will, Nev,' Ron grumbled as he approached with the rest of the ones that lingered.

He sat on the ground against the wall a few paces from where Harry and Daphne sat, but Hermione came right up to them, falling to her knees and pulling them both into a crushing hug.

'Well done, you two,' she said, joining Ron once she was done hugging. 'Will you tell us what happened?'

'I'll tell you what happened.' Tracey sat at the other side of Harry and Daphne, Astoria was there too, grinning mischievously at Daphne. 'Daphne's been hanging out with far too many Gryffindors and it's making her go stupid. Those bloody lions are contagious. I'd keep well clear of them if I were you, Daph. Though I guess it can't get any worse than it already has.'

Astoria giggled, and despite the insults, Daphne did too. But that was largely because it was difficult to be angry when she was sitting so comfortably on Harry's lap.

'Well this time it was the Slytherin who charged in without a plan,' Hermione pointed out, also taking the insults in stride. 'And it worked out, I suppose.'

'So … what,' Ron said, looking like thinking things out was hurting him, 'Daphne decided to go in there alone because she can destroy the …' He trailed off, probably because Tracey and Astoria were there, but he didn't seem to care about making a smooth recovery. 'And Harry rushed out of the common room because he was going to save her?'

'That's the gist of it.' Harry finally let his arms unwrap her, smiling at her pout. He didn't pull away much though, just enough to slip the Unicorn Horn back inside her brooch, then his arms were around her again. 'I distracted Voldemort long enough for Daphne to do what she needed to do. Got hairy at the end though.'

'I did get Harry at the end,' Daphne whispered, making Harry snort.

'Hairy how?' Astoria queried, frowning.

Harry sighed, his hand abscently stroking Daphne's back. She had no plans of moving any time soon.

'I talked to Dumbledore's portrait in McGonagall's office about this. He said that if the last tether was destroyed, then the wraith would probably become unstable. He said it would be a good idea to get away from the wraith before finishing it.' Daphne stiffened in his arms, looking at his face in complete horror of what she almost did. Harry just laughed. 'It worked out.' When he kissed her it only made her feel a little bit better. She almost got them both killed. And maybe worse.

'That's why you wanted McGonagall to evacuate the school,' she mumbled.

He nodded against her cheek.

'If the wraith stayed in the school, or close to it, then someone could have gotten hurt.'

'But our Gryffindor in training bulldozed her way in there and almost made a mess of things,' Tracey said helpfully.

'Bulldozed?' Ron questioned in complete confusion.

'Bloody idiot wizards,' Tracey mumbled.

Daphne sighed against Harry's shoulder. Tracey wasn't wrong. She almost screwed up royally. They were quite lucky things worked out.

'My plan was worse.' Harry's voice was barely above a whisper. 'It wouldn't have worked, doing it on my own. If Daphne had just let me handle it –'

'What do you mean, doing it on your own?' Hermione questioned suspiciously.

He shrugged, Daphne rising and lowering with the motion since her arms were still around his neck.

'I thought I would do it like with the dragon,' he said. 'With the egg. Fly around the wraith and snag the Horcrux, you know? But it wouldn't have worked. And when it didn't work …' When he trailed off Daphne could tell something important was left unspoken, but before she could question him on what he left out, Hermione chimed in again.

'We would have come up with a better plan,' Hermione argued. 'Were you even going to tell us?'

'No,' Harry said immediately. 'I wasn't.' Hermione was about to respond but Harry spoke over her. 'Things were back to normal for everyone else, everyone all seemed already convinced that it was all over, even with his wraith still alive and in Hogwarts. I didn't want to take that away from you, Hermione, from any of you.' The way he looked into her eyes made her want to kiss him again, but he wasn't done talking, and she wanted to hear what he had to say. 'It never felt over for me. I've seen what he can do as a wraith, I saw Quirrell and I saw him come back in Little Hangleton. It's done now, but if Voldemort had somehow gotten control of someone, a student or anyone else, he could have taken his Horcrux from here and the nightmare would eventually start again. I was not about to let that happen. No matter what I had to do.'

Daphne leaned away from him, but he wouldn't even meet her eye all of a sudden. She took his face in her hands and made her look at him.

'Tell me what you would have done.' Her voice shook, but there was no denying it for the demand that it was.

He held her gaze, not even blinking. Then tenderly, he kissed her, and for a moment she forgot about what she just asked of him. The kiss was so gentle, yet held so much within it, and she found she didn't want it ever to end. Yet when it did, and he spoke, she was back to needing to hear him.

'It was what Dumbledore's portrait asked me to do.' She could tell he still didn't want to say it, but whatever it was didn't fill him with that anger and frustration that he displayed back in the hospital wing, before Voldemort was destroyed. 'He taught me a spell. If I couldn't find it, I would have used it to destroy the whole room, hopefully keeping it to just the room. He taught me how to conjure Fiendfyre.'

Hermione gasped, but Daphne didn't really follow. She could vaguely remember hearing the term in her Dark Arts class with Amycus Carrow, but she never paid attention in those classes. Harry could see she didn't quite understand, so he elaborated.

'Fiendfyre is incredibly difficult to control. It's cursed fire, and it's strong enough to do the job. But if I used it in that space, I probably wouldn't have come out of there alive.'

Daphne stared horror-struck into his eyes. Suddenly she understood why he was so angry with the former Headmaster, and some of the words he said to her in the hospital wing made more sense. She shared in that anger now, she had a sudden desire to march up to McGonagall's office and destroy the memory of that man. Before she got angry enough to do that, Harry was holding her close to him again.

'But I don't have to even think about doing any of that,' he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. 'Because of you. Because you wanted to protect me as much as I wanted to protect you.' He laughed then, and if it weren't for the fact that he was suddenly free in so many ways it might have sounded quite mad. 'You know, Dumbledore got a lot of things wrong, but there was one thing I think he got right. The power he knows not …' He laughed again. 'Voldemort definitely didn't see you coming, Daphne Greengrass.'

Not understanding what he meant, she looked over to Hermione and Ron. They stared at Harry in complete shock, eyes big on their blushing faces. Ron mumbled something about "leaving them to it" and made to leave, dragging Hermione with him. As Hermione was going her shock turned into a teary smile, waving goodbye and letting Ron take her away.

'I don't get it,' Astoria said.

'Yeah, you'll have to explain that one, Potter,' Tracey added.

'Call me Harry, Tracey,' Harry said, smiling at Daphne, running his thumb across her cheek. 'And I definitely will explain it eventually.' When she looked into his eyes she saw that same emerald fire she saw before, but different too. A passion bright enough that his gaze smouldered. 'Yeah,' he said, leaning in. 'I definitely will.'

I can handle eventually, I suppose, Daphne thought, smiling against his lips. I certainly have something to occupy my time until then.