War Is Over: Chapter 4/17 - Trials and Tribulations
These were the summer holidays as they had never been before. It wasn't just the freedom Harry and Ron enjoyed, with nothing to do until they started their Auror training in September, or even the partial one for Hermione and Ginny who, while going back to Hogwarts, were not given any serious work for the summer holidays, considering the way the year had ended.
No, it wasn't merely the freedom of summer - everywhere in the wizarding world, people were happy as they hadn't been for a long, long time. It was real, absolute freedom, the freedom from Voldemort.
Everyone reacted differently to that freedom. Some people got married - Harry and the Weasleys found themselves invited to 4 weddings within the month of June alone, and July had proved so far to be just as bad. Some people spent their time trying to rebuild the exact same world that had been threatened only a short while ago - none of the Weasleys had seen much of Charlie, who had had temporarily given up dragons and instead spent almost all of his time helping rebuilding Hogwarts, and Fleur was starting to complain about the amount of time Bill dedicated to the reconstruction of Gringotts together with the Goblins.
And some people changed some of their most basic habits. Mrs Weasley was one of them, as one day Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny walked into the Weasley kitchen and saw a telephone.
"Dad's gone bonkers again," Ron declared, while at the same time eyed the thing in curiosity. He had seen a telephone only once in his life - when he tried to call Harry during the summer holidays, long ago, and failed miserably.
"It's not your Dad," Molly said, going red. The four stared at her for a moment.
"How come we got a telephone?" Ron demanded.
"Well, it's much easier to contact the Grangers that way," Molly said. Ron still shook his head in amazement, but for the rest, it seemed natural. Mr and Mrs Granger came around for dinner quite often lately. They wanted to learn more of Hermione's world, they said, and especially wanted to learn more of Ron and his family.
The dinners were first awkward, with Mr and Mrs Granger mainly looking confused, Molly mainly looking uncomfortable, and Arthur discovering a new exciting passion - dentistry. The ice was finally broken in an early July dinner, when Mr Granger told the story of how he got bitten by a 10-year-old kid once.
"It ended up with me having to get six stitches," he concluded his story.
"Really? And did they work?" Arthur asked, excited. "I tried stitches once, but they didn't work."
Mr Granger looked at him in confusion. "Was there a particular reason they didn't work? Wizards don't have different - different physiology, do you? I mean," he looked worried at his daughter, "you're still..."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "We're just as human, Dad. Arthur's stitches didn't work because he was bitten by a magical animal."
"I see," said Mr Granger, obviously relieved. "Do you work with many animals, Arthur?"
Now it was Arthur's turn to stare at Mr Granger in confusion. "I don't work with animals at all," he said. "I work in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office. The snake was... not a part of my job," he finished awkwardly.
"Although you could claim that turning a snake into a Horcrux is a form of misuse," Harry mused loudly without thinking.
The entire table stared at him in silence.
It was George, of all people, who broke the silence - George, who was mostly quiet and withdrawn these days. "'I'm sorry, Mr Voldemort'," he said in an incredibly accurate imitation of his father, "'but I have a warrant for your arrest, as it seems you have ignored the Ministry's policy regarding the misuse of Muggle Artefacts and have not responded to any of our previous communications'."
"Breaking Ministry regulation number 1153 dash 17," Ginny added.
"You could also get him for cruelty to animals I suppose, although I imagine that'd be Perkins's job," Ron suggested. The idea of the small, frail and perpetually confused Perkins arresting Voldemort on a minor technicality had transformed the air in the room. At that moment, anyone around the table who had ever met Perkins burst into laughter. Even Hermione's parents gave a small nervous chuckle, despite not knowing Perkins - they had heard just enough about Voldemort to realise how ridiculous the idea was, even without knowing the people involved.
But that laughter had managed to break the invisible barrier between Muggles and wizards. From that moment, the Grangers had become a part of the extended Weasley family, and in almost no time at all, Molly Weasley found herself in need of a telephone,to give the Grangers the recipe for her wonderful pie, or to suggest another dinner, or just to talk - and after twenty-odd years of having mainly dentist friends, Mr and Mrs Granger had discovered they enjoyed talking about things other than people's teeth every once in a while, especially when these things were as strange as the Ministry of Magic, magical animals, or Quidditch.
The Grangers even tried inviting the entire Weasley family to dinner at their house once, but that proved more of a disaster than a success. Unlike Arthur's previous - and disastrous - attempts to reach a Muggle home, this time everyone could Apparate into the Granger house, so the evening started on a relatively positive note. Yet it still gave way to utter mayhem very early on, as the Grangers didn't realise that one of the ways Molly Weasley had always found it easy to make dinners for so many people was her ability to use magic. The Granger house was too small, and even stretching to the garden, there was almost no room for anyone. Molly brought her food only half prepared - "it won't be fresh if I cooked it all in the Burrow!" she pointed out - and the small kitchen simply didn't have enough ovens. And then it started raining, and everyone had to run into the small living room to find cover, where they found themselves sitting on sofas, chairs, the floor and eventually on one another, while Arthur was fascinated by the Grangers' collection of VHS tapes and insisted they should watch something. Unwittingly, Mr Granger picked up a film called Excalibur.
The next two hours were spent with the Weasleys complaining about the historical inaccuracies and the improbable use of magic in the film, and the night ended with an unspoken agreement that any more dinner parties will be given at the Burrow.
But still, not everything could take place there. And so it happened that on the 31st of July everyone found themselves gathering in London, of all places, to celebrate Harry's birthday at Number 12, Grimmauld Place.
There had been another attack by renegade Death Eaters that morning, not far from Grimmauld place ("And that makes it the third this month!" Molly said, and looked at Kingsley with an edge to her voice). It took a couple of minutes by the door to reassured everyone, and then friends and family all gathered inside to enjoy the evening.
"This cake looks delicious, Molly," was all Harry could say when the Weasleys finally got in. And it did, along with everything else they had brought with them.
"Mum's been cooking for three days," Ron muttered to Harry. "She didn't cook this much for my 18th birthday."
"You were on the run on your 18th birthday," Harry commented.
"Yeah, well, still," Ron refused to let such small technicalities get in the way of a good grump, but it was all in good spirits.
"But really, Molly, you shouldn't have. Kreacher's been cooking as well," Harry pointed out, to which Molly only replied that she didn't have much faith in the house elf's cooking skills.
She was wrong, of course - Kreacher was at least as good a cook as Molly herself, but Harry wasn't going to argue the point, not when there was so much tasty food on the table.
Instead, he took out a very old bottle of firewhiskey from the Black Family cupboard. "It's an... 1818? Was that a good year?" he asked, and with the shocked face Bill gave him, he assumed the answer was yes. It was a pretty good firewhiskey, and Harry figured he couldn't appreciate it enough, not having enough experience. But it was tasty, and the cake was wonderful - as were Kreacher's little appetisers - and soon they were all laughing and noisy and the Grangers, it seemed, were also a little drunk, but as Hermione scathingly pointed out when he joked about it, so were Seamus and Dean.
Only one time did the evening get uncomfortable. After some cake and a little bit of dancing, the doorbell rang, and there were Luna and her father, fashionably late or, as Harry said later, probably with no idea of the time.
He had invited Luna, of course. And she, it would seem, had assumed the invitation has included her father. He wasn't completely opposed to it himself - Harry could recognise that whatever had happened with Xenophilius Lovegood had only happened out of his fear and love for Luna. He couldn't blame him, not completely. But it was still there in the air between them.
Xenophilius looked around, embarrassed, then straightened up and offered his hand to Harry. "Mr Potter," he said.
"Mr Lovegood," Harry replied stiffly, but took the hand.
Xenophilius looked lost for a moment, and then, with the slightest nudge from his daughter, opened his mouth again. "I realise that the last time I had seen you was not under ideal circumstances," he said, "but I wanted you to know that - "
" - That you were a traitorous little git who sold us out?" Ron was not going to be as charitable as Harry, it seemed.
The music in the living room stopped. Everyone was interested in listening in on how this would turn out. They all had their own opinion.
"Drop it," Harry mumbled to Ron.
"No, I'm not going to drop it," Ron insisted savagely, and Harry looked at him in surprise. It wasn't often that Ron flat out refused such a request. "We almost died because of him."
"And Luna almost died because of us," Harry reminded him.
"Why are you defending him?" Ron demanded. "He sold - us - out - to - Voldemort!"
Mr Lovegood jumped at the sound of the name.
"Yes. He did. But the war's over, Ron. We won."
"Not thanks to him," Ron said.
"Ron, not now. Please."
Ron shrugged. "It's your party, mate," he said, as he finally let the matter go and went back to the other room. Harry showed both Luna and Xenophilius into the living room, where they were met with curious - and some hostile - glances. Seamus seemed mostly sympathetic; Dean mostly hostile. And the Grangers were looking at the new arrivals in confusion. Luckily, Neville brought things back to normal as he asked Luna to dance, promptly ignoring her father, and the music - and with it, the party - started again. Even if most people took their cue from Neville and simply ignored Xenophilius. People started dancing again: Neville and Luna, Mr and Mrs Weasley, Ron and Hermione - or started gossiping again: Seamus - indeed, slightly drunk - told Harry how Cho was back to dating Michael Corner; Lee Jordan wondered loudly who will be their instructor for Auror training, "what with so many people dying and all"; and Percy went on and on about the Sword of Gryffindor. "I told the Minister, you can't publish that it's gone again! People will panic! He said he doesn't think it matters, that the Sword always appeared when it was needed, but I don't know."
"Are you sure you didn't take the Sword with you?" Harry whispered, amused, to Neville.
"I wish I had," he said, "imagine Percy's face if i took it out now. Nah, I gave it to Kingsley. Someone must have put it in the wrong cupboard," he shrugged, and went back to dancing. Harry smirked, and decided to get himself another butterbeer.
Andromeda Tonks was also near the long table that served as buffet. She had come to the party at Harry's invitation. He felt obligated to do so, as she was Teddy's grandmother and guardian, but he never expected her to come. And yet, at 7:30, she showed up at his door. Now, she was drinking a glass of coke brought by the Grangers, and looking at Harry.
"Something's bothering you, Andromeda?" he asked.
"Weird drink, this thing," she said.
"I'm surprised there's no equivalent in the wizarding world," he said. "It's very popular with Muggles."
"I can imagine," she took another sip. Harry waited for her to say something else - he was sure she did not look at him like that only to comment about the coke.
"It's a generous thing you just did there, Harry," she observed after a while.
"How do you mean?"
"Xeno Lovegood," she gestured at Luna's dad, who was standing by himself, slightly awkwardly, at another corner of the room. "People are still very angry. They aren't likely to forget who cooperated with Voldemort any time soon, even if they cooperated out of fear and not choice. Just like they aren't likely to forget who's a Slytherin and who's a Gryffindor any time soon."
"Well, I didn't want to leave Mr - " he started, and then registered the full meaning of what she was saying, and turned to face her in shock. "You married a Muggle-born," he said in disbelief. "You were working with the Order. You gave us a safe house when they were moving me. Surely no one's - ?"
She laughed, a small, bitter laughter. "You are quite incredible, Harry Potter. After all you've been through, and you still manage to remain..." she seemed to be considering her next word, " - naive."
He opened his mouth to argue, but she had already gone. Her words remained with him all through the party, and the anger inside him grew whenever his gaze met her, standing slightly apart from everyone else.
Finally, around midnight, the party started dying down and everyone started leaving. "Are you coming to the Burrow or staying here?" Ron asked Harry, who had been alternating between the Burrow and Grimmauld Place for the past couple of weeks.
"I think I'll be staying," he said.
"Alright, good night then. Ginny, bring my coat while you're at it, will you?" he called to his sister, who was standing in the hallway.
"You go ahead," she answered him, "I think I'll be staying a little bit longer."
Ron, slightly drunk himself with the firewhiskey, froze in his place.
"Come on," Hermione grabbed his arm, then pushed him towards the door. "Say good night."
"Good night," he mumbled, and she laughed. "Good night, Harry, Ginny," she said, and dragged Ron out of the corridor and into the street. Harry closed the door behind them.
"Thought they'd never leave," he said.
Ginny was already at his side. "Happy birthday, Harry," she said, grinning widely. Harry grinned back, before holding her for a kiss.
-X-
Throughout the summer, Harry continued to spend most of his time at Grimmauld place, not to burden the Weasleys. He still had dinners there, almost every evening; still spent most of his days and nights with Ron, Hermione and Ginny, with the girls working on a couple of essays every once in a while, but mostly they were having fun together, and no reasons to worry. Harry found himself for the first time a with no classes, no homework, no exams - in true holiday, not anticipating for the worst and not preparing for a war or to run for his life. And mostly, with no Dursleys.
He had seen Dudley a couple more times after that first time in May. On Dudley's birthday, in June, he Apparated to Little Whinging with a birthday present, staying as far away as possible from Privet Drive and catching up with his cousin in one of the shops of the small town centre. Another time they played football again, and Dudley said he would like to see "that game with the broomsticks, whatsitcalled". Harry laughed, but didn't say a word.
The idea of Dudley watching a Quidditch match was ridiculous.
That same time, Dudley tried to convince Harry again to come to Privet Drive and talk to his aunt and uncle. Harry turned him down again, and soon after Disapparated back to London.
The third time he had gone back to Little Whinging was in August. On the day of the trial. When he needed to get away most from the wizarding world, from the discussions all around him. Everyone had an opinion, of course. Everyone thought they already knew what the best course of action would be.
It wasn't news to anyone that Harry Potter was going to testify in Draco Malfoy's trial. And wherever he went, people assumed they knew what he was going to say. "You make sure he's going to go away for good," one wizard told him in the Leaky Cauldron a week before the trial. "After you'll talk, no one will ever think of giving him less than a lifetime in Azkaban - which is more than he deserves," a small witch said when she ran into him in one of the shops of Diagon Alley. "With you, he doesn't stand a chance," several people told him when he came to visit Kingsley in the Ministry again.
Kingsley was one of the few who didn't say a word. Even Ron had something to say, although, as he had known Harry, his words were different from what everyone else had said. "You're completely bonkers," Ron said. "You're making a mistake," he pointed out. "Why are you helping Malfoy?" he asked, incredulous. "Hermione, tell him to get back to his senses," he appealed to his girlfriend, with as little success as he had from Harry. Hermione said nothing - much like Kingsley. And when pushed, they both said the same thing.
"He's got to do what he's got to do."
So, on the day of the trial, the day he was scheduled to give his testimony - whatever it may be, a doubt-ridden, questioning Harry found himself back in Little Whinging in an early morning hour, at the door of Number Four, Privet Drive.
Every instinct he had told him to walk away. He didn't understand what brought him there in the first place, what possessed him to show up there, out of all the places in all the world. It was foolishness, it was pointless, and it wouldn't do any good.
His hand was hanging in front of the door a long time, ready to knock.
Eventually, he lowered his hand, and turned away. He would step back to the alley and Disapparate back to Grimmauld place, or perhaps directly to the Ministry's entrance. The trial was to begin soon enough.
"You."
He registered the voice before he recognised the word as something that related to him. He turned back slowly. On Number Four's doorstep, Petunia Dursley was standing with her shiningly clean kitchen bin, stopped on her way to put the bag into the equally clean but somewhat larger bin next to the gate.
"I was just leaving," Harry mumbled.
He was almost at the gate when he heard her speak again. "Wait," she said.
He stopped, and again turned to look at her. There was no love in her face, no affection as she was surveying him. He could imagine what he looked like to her - his hair was still lfar too long and messy to Petunia Dursley's eyes. His jeans were shabby and slightly torn. The t-shirt he was wearing was salvaged from some of the stuff he had left at the Weasleys the last summer, and had not seen water in that long a time. In short, while his appearance was never one to gain him his aunt's approval, he couldn't look worse in her eyes if he tried.
Not to mention, he thought dryly to himself as she was standing there, still staring at him, the fact that he was there at all - that was bound to meet her deepest disapproval, whatever he looked like.
"You're alive," she finally said, stating the obvious.
"It's all over," he agreed.
"I know, the - " she coughed for a second, then stopped, seemingly trying to find the right words. "They said so, when they brought us back here. Dedalus and Hestia," she added, and Harry couldn't help smiling. Aunt Petunia referring to wizards by their names - that must have been one hell of a year.
"Yeah, well, I'll be leaving now," he said. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
"Wait," she said again, slightly louder, but when he turned again towards her, she still said nothing.
And then she did speak, and it was as if everything she had wanted to say from the day he got the letter from Hogwarts finally came out. "I don't like that world of yours," she said. "It's abnormal, it's scary, and it's full of people who think their powers give them the right to do whatever they want. And they're unkind."
Harry refrained from commenting on the Dursleys' behaviour in the 17 years he had known them.
"And when we took you in we swore we'll put a stop to all this nonsense, we'd stamp that out of you, we'd make you... normal, but we failed and you're just like - just like all of them," she sniffled.
Harry felt that anger rising again, the anger he always felt when the Dursleys were talking of the magical world, of his parents, or of himself. But he didn't express that anger, not this time, because her next words shocked him.
"But we never wanted you to die. Maybe we don't know any spells, and can't stop that Lord - him. But we were trying to protect you."
Harry stared at her in stunned silence.
"I loved my sister. Before she became something different and got sucked in, disappeared in all this nonsense. Before she changed. Before she got blown up. And you were the last thing that remained of her and I was going to try to protect you and frankly I don't care what you think!" And with that, Aunt Petunia turned her back to him and marched back into her house, the bin forgotten on the doorstep.
Harry stared at the bin for a while longer, unsure what to do next. Only a year ago, he would have probably stormed her door, knocked it down and demanded to get some answers. A few years before that, he would have started shouting her down, how she didn't understand anything.
But now, he just walked away. A small part of him, the part that was willing to try and forgive, if not forget, felt satisfied - even if just for that one moment. He felt ready now to Apparate directly to the Ministry of Magic.
There was no bigger contrast between Little Whinging's sleepy morning and the activity in the Ministry of Magic at that same time. Instead of quiet homes and abandoned streets, the Ministry of Magic was full of people. Ministry employees, family members of fallen heroes, newspaper reporters; they all rushed about, trying to catch the best seats for the trial, to get their current objections or requests known, or generally be heard by anyone and everyone. In this commotion, even Harry Potter could disappear. He went down to the courts, found a seat far away from the front of the court, and waited for the whole thing to begin, and all that time he remained unnoticed. Even when Draco Malfoy was brought into the room - to the hissing and catcalls of the audience - and the trial started, he remained anonymous. Only when Kingsley Shacklebolt asked whether Harry Potter was in the room did he get up, and the people around him jumped.
"Is there something you want to say, Mr Potter?" said Kingsley, maintaining his official, most formal behaviour, and keeping as close to the protocol. Even now, as he looked directly at Harry, he didn't give him a sign. Harry will do what he thinks is right, he had said, and it was obvious he was going to keep to that statement.
"Yes," Harry said, and sat down in front of what looked like the entire wizarding community.
"Harry will do what he thinks is right," Kingsley said the night before. "He's got to do what he's got to do."
The only thing was, he never pointed out it might not make a difference at all.
Harry didn't expect the wizards and witches in front of him to appreciate - or even understand - what he was trying to do. He wasn't so sure he understood it himself. But he wasn't quite prepared to the uncertainty in their faces as he went up and told them about the events that took place at Malfoy Manor and about Draco's role on the Astronomy Tower. They wanted to believe him, he figured, wanted to believe in him - but for the first time, in front of everyone who had made it to Courtroom Six, he wasn't quite sure this feeling would be stronger than the anger they had felt towards Draco Malfoy.
He could see Rita Skeeter's face light up in excitement as she started writing furiously - no doubt about the confusion of Harry Potter. He had the feeling that this was not going to end well.
Still, he said what he had to say, and when he finished talking, he left the courtroom back to the Weasley's house, and no one tried to stop him, and no one called back after him, and no one had anything to say. For a moment, Harry hoped that they were thinking about what he had said.
But when the verdict came, the wizards and witches of the Wizengamot didn't need Rita Skeeter's insinuations that Harry Potter had had one too many Killing Curses hitting him, or was emotionally unstable, or shocked and confused, or whatever it was she was going to write. The verdict came out that same day, and it came out the same as it would have had Harry kept his mouth shut. The wizarding world has declared Draco Malfoy guilty, guilty of being a Death Eater, of following Voldemort and his orders.
And the wizards of the Wizengamot were not the only one to consider Malfoy guilty. That evening, dinner at the Burrow was an unusually quiet affair.
"Please pass me the pie, Harry," was the first thing Ron had said to Harry that entire evening - and was much more polite than Harry had ever heard Ron.
"'Please pass me the pie'?" Harry repeated. "Are you feeling alright?"
Ron looked at Harry, saying nothing. Harry nodded and passed the pie, without asking any more questions. He was not going to start a fight at Molly Weasley's table.
Unfortunately, Ron couldn't stop himself any longer.
"You had to do it, didn't you?" he said.
"Do what?" Harry asked - even though he knew the answer well enough.
"Testify for Malfoy!" Ron spat, raising his voice.
"It's not like it helped," Harry now raised his voice, too. "He's still going to Azkaban."
"Not thanks to you."
"He saved our lives!" Harry repeated loudly, for what felt like the millionth time in the past couple of days. "He could have said who we were, in which case we'd be dead right now! And besides - "
"The war is over, yeah, yeah," Ron cut across him angrily.
Harry was silent for a while. When he spoke again, it was in a quiet, calm voice. "What does that mean, exactly," he said, not really asking.
"What do you think it means?"
"I don't know. That's why I'm asking you."
"It means that you're too quick to forgive them. All of them! Death Eaters, Slytherins, Xeno - "
"Oh, you're not still going on about Xenophilius Lovegood, are you!"
"Well, what if I am?" Ron demanded. "What if I'm not ready to forget how many times we could have died, all the people we lost, Fr - " he started and then stopped, realising Molly was still at the table. She stared at her plate now, frozen in place. Arthur put his arm around her shoulder, his face drained of colour.
At the other end of the table, George got up without excusing himself and left the room.
"I haven't forgotten any of them," Harry said quietly, hoping his words would reach George's ears. "And I'm not going to. Ever."
"But you're willing to forget."
"I'm willing to move on."
"I'm just saying, it's not as east for all of us," Ron said reasonably.
"I'm all for finding all the active Death Eaters and throw them in Azkaban and throw away the key," Harry replied. "But Malfoy isn't one of them. He never really had a choice, did he? But if we insist to go after him, to lock him up for good, then what? What's next, Ron? Death Eater families? Slytherins? Did you know Andromeda's getting a hard time because she's a Slytherin?"
"Well, Andromeda shouldn't," Ron muttered quietly, but then heated up again, "But yeah, why not check on Slytherins? And Death Eater families? You should remember what Sirius told you - these things are all in the family, that's the way they're brought up. And look at Malfoy - you think he'd be half the git he is if he didn't learn it from his Death Eater father? Why not check on Death Eater families? And this isn't about revenge, it's not just because of - because of who we lost," he shot a glance at Hermione as he said that.
And now Harry was really confused. "What does that mean?"
Hermione shot an angry look at Ron.
"Well?" Harry demanded.
"Look, Harry, I don't want to - to give you the wrong idea, I understand what you're saying, but - "
"But?"
"You've got a good position in the magical world. Your father was a pureblood wizard."
"I thought we already had this conversation," Harry said, irritated. "I doubt I'm going to be getting any Christmas cards from Death Eaters anytime soon. Including the Malfoys."
"I'm not talking about Death Eaters."
"Then what?"
"Everyone else."
Harry looked at her, saying nothing.
"The ideas about pureblooded wizards didn't start with Tom Riddle, Harry. They didn't even start with Salazar Slytherin. They've been around as long as wizards lived with Muggles. And they're going to continue long after no one remembers Voldemort's name. And according to them, Ron's alright because he's pureblood, and Ginny's alright because she's pureblood, and even you're alright because you're half-blood. And I'm still a Mudblood - don't look at me like that, Harry Potter! That word isn't going to disappear any time soon."
Harry said nothing; he could not think of a single thing to say in reply to Hermione's words. As far as he could tell, she was right.
The rest of dinner was spent in silence, much like its beginning, and when they finished, Harry got up, thanked Molly and said that he thought he'd be sleeping in London that day. No one, not even Ginny, tried to stop him.
"I'll walk you out," was the most Harry got, a suggestion from Ron to walk with him to the point in the path where he could Disapparate.
"No, it's okay, really," said Harry, determined to remain calm and polite.
"Don't be daft. Come on."
They walked together in silence, and only at the gate, when Harry said, "Well, see you tomorrow," did Ron start speaking.
"It's okay to hate him, you know," he said.
Harry sighed. "I really don't hate Malfoy, Ron, I know it's hard for you to - "
"Snape."
Harry froze in mid-sentence, and stopped to look - to really look - at his friend.
"Look, Harry, you're my best friend. I think by now I know you well enough to know how you feel about things. I don't understand all of it, but I still know what it is. Snape was..."
" - He risked his life - "
" - disgusting, nasty, bullying - "
" - he gave up everything to help defeat - "
" - slimy, greasy-haired - "
" - he gave up his life! - "
" - Stupid git!"
" - he loved her!"
"And he still made your life a living hell since the day he met you! Yeah, we never would have won without him, Harry, but he still had no love for you and he'd done nothing to hide that fact, so you shouldn't feel obligated to appreciate that slimy bastard now that he's gone."
"What is it, then, is he a stupid git or a slimy bastard? Make up your mind," Harry said absently after a moment's silence, mainly to have something to say and not fall into another silence. He didn't even know what to think of Ron's words. He had spent the larger part of the past three months avoiding thinking of it altogether.
"No," Ron said, "I meant you with that bit."
Harry stared at him for a moment longer, and then they both started laughing.
"See you tomorrow," he said again, this time with a smile and real warmth in his voice.
"See you, mate," Ron replied, and stayed near the gate to watch Harry Disapparate.