Part 2, Chapter 11: Perpetual Change
31st December, 2010, 11:23 a.m.
"Harry," Harry heard a voice. A soft, tender voice. A familiar voice. A voice he knew, a voice he trusted. "Harry," the voice said again, calling his name. He opened his eyes, and saw Ginny's bright eyes peering at him from above. It was the best thing he had seen in his life.
"Ginny," he wanted to shout in joy, but his voice came out only in a whisper.
"Are you alright?" she asked, looking at him with a worried expression. As a response, he put his hand on her shoulder and used it as leverage to get up and kiss her. He only managed a small peck before he fell again, but he hoped it communicated everything he wanted to say. He didn't think he could find the words.
"Er," was Ginny's response - not quite the reaction he was expecting.
Someone - not Ginny - pushed a goblet into his hand. "Drink this," said a voice, such a familiar voice. "It is best your head be clear before we explain everything."
He knew that voice, he knew that, but he couldn't figure out who it was. Harry drank the potion, and could feel the strength returning to his body, the clarity to his mind. He then looked up at slightly worried, slightly amused blue eyes, behind half-moon spectacles.
He closed his eyes. He opened them again. It didn't change the sight above him. Albus Dumbledore was still crouching there and looking at him. "Am I dead?" he asked the question that might have sounded foolish in a different situation - or, perhaps, by a different man - but Harry felt he was completely justified this time.
"Not yet, Mr Potter," Dumbledore said, the tip of his lips twitching in amusement.
And then it all came back to Harry - parallel universes, alternate realities, dead people and living people and everything in between, and this Dumbledore must have got there from a different - alternate - whatever. "This realities thing is giving me a headache," he muttered.
Ginny laughed. Even Dumbledore's lips opened in a true smile. "Come on," he told Harry and offered his hand - his right hand, the one that had suffered the curse, but this one was whole and strong. Harry grabbed it and Dumbledore, with surprising strength for a man who must have been at least a hundred and twenty years old, pulled him up.
"Argh," Harry said as his head started spinning again. Dumbledore gave him another potion, which Harry drank gratefully. The spinning stopped, and some of the pain, if not disappeared, then became duller.
He could still feel it - the vicious cut on his back, the blood, and as he took a tentative step or two, his legs shook. He was probably stinking, and what he really wanted right now was a long hot shower and a good sleep - and possibly a few meals in between - but that could wait. What he needed was - "My wand," he said.
Dumbledore looked at him curiously.
"Malfoy took it. When we first got here, not when... not... when was it? When did I walk in here?"
"You don't know?" Dumbledore asked, and Harry could hear the concern in his voice.
"It's, uh," he shook his head and rubbed his eyes and tried to sound more coherent, so that the old wizard would be less worried. "Malfoy had some fun screwing around with... well, everything really, I guess. How many days it's been?"
"Two days."
"Two days." Harry couldn't quite wrap his mind around it. All that time, and it had only been two days... he leaned on the wall and took a look around at the cell. At the wooden bench, at the heap of straw at the corner, the wet floor... all the times he had woken up in here, he thought, and it had only been two days.
"The war is over now," Dumbledore said, obviously trying to cheer Harry up. "I'm afraid you've missed it."
Harry gave a hollow laughter, that didn't quite reflect his relief. "I can't say I'm upset about that."
"I thought you wouldn't be. Mr Malfoy," he said the name in disdain, "has been captured, not long ago, and - "
But Harry didn't listen to the rest of the sentence. "They got Malfoy?" he asked, and thought of Gregory Goyle. "We need to get there now."
Ignoring both Dumbledore's and Ginny's protests, he started running, all the time shouting back, "Where are they?"
He could hear Ginny running, calling behind him, "The Minister's office - wait - where are you going!" but he ignored her. There was no time.
He knew how he must have looked as he climbed up from the filthiest cell to the fanciest, most important part of the Ministry. And on the way, he passed through groups and groups of people. Some of them stared at him, some of them pointed, some of them looked in confusion; he didn't have the time to worry about them, didn't even have the time to register them, except to shout "Out of my way!" whenever a particularly large group was standing there blocking the hallways, the stairways, the way to the Minister's office.
He burst through to the Minister's Senior Undersecretary's office. The Senior Undersecretary wasn't in - just more wizards and witches, some look familiar, most of them he didn't bother noticing. Someone got up, tried to stop him. He ignored them and rushed forward, through the big oak doors, into the room where they held Malfoy. "Stop!" he shouted before he had to stop himself and catch his breath. The effects of the potions were wearing off, probably spent with the adrenaline that rushed through his body. The room started spinning. "Stop," he said again, more softly, and held on to the door to keep the room around him steady, or at least, to keep himself steady inside the room.
Someone jumped on him. For a moment, he cursed himself - he didn't have a wand, he couldn't defend himself - even though he could barely see and his wand would do little good against an attack. And then he realised he was being hugged.
"Merlin," Ron said in a shaky voice, "you're alive, Harry, we thought, I didn't..." now that he managed to detach himself from Ron, he could see the concern and relief in those blue eyes.
"I'm okay," he said quietly. But in Ron's eyes, whatever little relief was already disappearing, replaced by more and more concern. Harry knew what he must look like. "I'll be okay, at least," he amended. "Dumbledore said Malfoy's here."
Now that he had caught his breath and the room was no longer spinning, he could take a look around. Wherever the centre of attention had been before, it was now him, he realised - everyone was looking at him, relief in their eyes. But he couldn't see Malfoy anywhere.
"Dumbledore said you've got Malfoy here," he said again, slightly louder this time. There was nothing but silence. "Where is he?" Harry asked sharply.
"It's not what you think," Hermione said. There was ice in her voice, mingled with the relief. For some reason, Harry couldn't believe her.
"Where is he?" he asked again. He could feel the urgency sipping through his voice.
"It's not what you think, Harry," Ron said this time. Harry looked at him, and only then allowed himself to calm down.
"Can, uh, someone fill us in?" he heard a familiar voice, and his heart skipped a beat.
Harry closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again, and only then turned to his right, where he could see now the man he had not seen for fifteen years... "Sirius."
Sirius had a wide, huge grin plastered all over his face. He looked happy - so much happier than Harry ever remembered seeing him. There wasn't a time that Harry could remember Sirius's rare spells of happiness without also remembering them coloured by bitterness and pain. But here was this smile, so carefree and overjoyed. And when he said, "This is going to be one of those awkward-different-histories thing again, isn't it?" Harry could hear that he was joking - mostly.
"Probably," someone else said - Remus. And then Dumbledore and Ginny - a different Ginny - appeared through the large doors. Behind them, Harry could see the people he had ignored when he rushed in, and he recognised them with a pang and a shock: his mother, his father, Severus Snape.
He heard the stories from Hermione, but it didn't sound real, didn't feel real, not until now, when he saw all of them, alive again - no, still alive. Harry's head started spinning again.
Focus on what you know, he told himself. Focus on what you can understand. If he could even call this Malfoy and these people something he could understand.
"What are you going to do with Malfoy?" he asked.
"Well, that was the subject of the discussion before you jumped in," Sirius said wryly, and then, more sombrely, "I think we've reached a compromise everyone can live with, though."
"We're going to put them on trial, Harry," Hermione said now. "All of them. I think you could live with that?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah. I think you could live with that, too. How are you going to - I mean, I'm guessing these guys aren't going to stay here forever?"
"We'll manage," Ron said, and it took Harry a moment to shake the confusion and realise it was the other Ron, the Ron that was staying here in this world.
"Right," he said. Uncertainty and exhaustion filled him again. He looked again at Sirius, and opened his mouth to say something, even if this Sirius wasn't really his godfather, when all of a sudden he noticed the man who was sitting on a chair next to Sirius, bound. The man Sirius was clearly guarding, although whether he was guarding him so that he would not escape or guarding him from the rest of the group, Harry wasn't sure.
"Does anyone know where my wand is, please?" he asked quietly.
"They're here, we found them, Malfoy kept them and - " Ron started, then paused, looking alarmed. He had only now noticed that Harry had seen Malfoy. "Er..." Ron said now. "Harry?"
But no one answered Ron. Someone put a stick of wood in Harry's hand - a wand. And immediately, he felt the familiar warmth. He didn't need to look at the wand to know which one it was. Eleven inches, holly and phoenix feather, his own wand was finally returned to him.
He looked instead at the man who had put the wand in his hand. Dean Thomas. And he could see the look deep inside Dean's eyes, could hear the unspoken words. If he didn't want to wait for a trial, it was fine with Dean. No, he shook his head. This was not going to be a repeat of the Hog's Head.
Dean just shrugged. Whatever, he could read the word in his expression. Or, perhaps, 'fool'.
Harry clutched his wand, then went to the bound man on the chair. Sirius tensed next to him. Harry looked at him for a moment, trying to communicate that he wasn't going to punish Malfoy, trying to communicate that Sirius had nothing to worry about. Sirius didn't relax, and clutched his own wand, and Harry wondered whether he didn't understand, or whether he simply didn't trust Harry.
On the chair, Malfoy looked terrified. Still he mustered some defiance as he looked at Harry. "Which one are you, then?" he asked, and his gaze travelled beyond Harry - to the place the other Harry was standing, no doubt.
"I'm the one who defeated Voldemort," Harry said quietly. Someone coughed behind him, and he added in an afterthought, "The first time round."
You were the only one who could end it, and you failed us all. The words came all of a sudden to Harry's mind. He wasn't sure whether they were a dream, a hallucination, or whether that conversation had really ever happened. They looked at each other, Harry and Malfoy, without moving, and Harry had the impression that the same words were also on Malfoy's mind.
"There's another one. Like me. Isn't there?" Malfoy asked all of a sudden. "You said so."
"Yeah."
"What's he like?"
Harry got up. "Slowly learning how to be a decent human being," he said and turned his back on Malfoy.
31st December, 2010, 4:49 p.m.
Hermione wasn't quite sure how the ended up at Hogwarts. The Ministry had fallen, Diagon Alley was freed, Draco Malfoy was to be put on trial, and the rest of them were either arrested or fleeing.
It seemed like the end, until someone had mentioned Hogwarts, where the Death Eaters still reigned supreme. Perhaps it was Harry who had mentioned the school - the other Harry, or their Harry, or maybe it was someone else entirely. But it was time for the old school to start teaching the right kind of knowledge again.
That was how they ended up there, she knew. They came to capture all the Death Eaters who were still lurking about in the old corridors, teaching their students about blood purity and that Muggles were inferiors.
It was Dumbledore who said so, full of sadness, as the school's towers came into view. "The damage on the Ministry and in Diagon Alley you could fix soon enough," he said quietly. "But the damage that was inflicted within these walls, I'm afraid you will have to spend much more time undoing that damage, Ms Granger."
Neville stopped at the gates, passed his hand on the walls that surrounded the grounds, before he drew his wand and walked through the gates. "I always wanted to be a teacher," he said quietly. "I always thought Herbology could be quite the subject to teach here."
"Then perhaps you should," Hermione said. "I think the castle will need you as much as you'll need it."
"Perhaps even more," Dumbledore added.
There wasn't a battle in the school, no real fight. The Death Eaters had already heard the fate of their friends in London, and that Hogsmeade was being taken at that very moment. And if they still harboured a wish to fight, it quickly evaporated as they laid eyes on Albus Dumbledore himself. They surrendered without a fight, and Dumbledore called someone from the Ministry to take them back to London. The last fight was over. The last obstacle.
Now they entered the Great Hall aimlessly. Hermione sat on a random table - she wasn't even sure which House it belonged to, Slytherin, perhaps? - and stared ahead. They won, she thought, but perhaps she was too numb to feel the victory. Perhaps she still remembered with trepidation their short-lived victory of two years before.
Someone sat next to her. Ron. She took another look and realised it wasn't her Ron - it was the other one. "Odd victory, this," he gestured around.
"Yeah," she said, and for a moment, wondered whether he could understand.
"I still remember the morning, after the battle. We were fighting all night long, and by the end, the entire castle was in ruins. This whole place - " he gestured around. "We had to rebuild everything afterwards."
"A bit like Diagon Alley," she said.
"Yeah."
Diagon Alley had suffered the brunt of the battle. The last they had seen it, before they proceeded to the Ministry, it had looked as if no building was still standing in the wizarding high street - no building except for the Leaky Cauldron, which was the entrance and exit to and from the Muggle world and could not be touched. But everything else... if she closed her eyes, she could still see the battle, and hear it and smell it. The Death Eaters were standing on rooftops, in balconies, and marching down the street, and it wasn't until they had destroyed each and every building that had provided them with shelter that the Death Eaters had given up and retreated.
"And here there wasn't any fight," he said again.
"There was a fight," Hermione corrected him. "Twelve years of fighting."
"Yeah."
They sat together in silence.
"I hear they want you to be the new Minister," Ron said quietly.
There had been talk. She heard it too. All of the obvious candidates were dead. Everyone who was already in the Ministry were Death Eaters and could not be trusted. They would need to fill the Ministry with their own people, and at the moment, the people everyone were thinking of were them - her Ron, Neville, Luna, Dean, Padma, Anthony... and herself.
"They're talking about the others as well," she said quietly.
"Could it be any one of them?" he asked. She knew what he was asking. She didn't even need to see him look at Harry - his Harry, who had just entered the Great Hall, with wet hair and some clean clothes someone had found for him.
Harry hadn't witnessed the argument at the Minister's office. Or, perhaps, it was a fight. Because, while they had all acknowledged the need for trials - and the more public, the better, she thought darkly - they still weren't sure what to do with Malfoy. And there was a moment when the question had come up.
She had thought Harry dead then. They all had. They had all been so sure that Malfoy had killed him. But it was still the thought of Harry that had made her hesitate. She had remembered then her conversation with him, back in the orchard, the conversation about Goyle, and at that moment, the most ridiculous thought had come to her mind. Harry would not have approved. So she had joined Sirius, Remus and this Ron, joined their side in the argument, that it was better to put Malfoy on trial in front of the entire wizengamot, the entire wizarding world, than end it right there and then. And she knew it was her taking that stand back in the Minister's office that had allowed Malfoy his life, until Harry had burst in and turned the entire discussion moot.
And that was what Ron was saying now. It was better to leave her in charge. She shook her head. "I don't think I would have said those things if it weren't for him," she said quietly.
Ron shrugged. "So Harry pushes people to do the right thing. What else is new?"
"He won't be here to push me again."
"He wasn't there to push you then."
"It would be far easier to teach here. I could teach Transfiguration. In Professor McGonagall's place. Or maybe Muggle studies."
"You could," Ron agreed.
"I'll enjoy doing that."
"Yeah, I think you would."
She laughed. "Didn't I tell you not to give me someone to lean on, Ronald Weasley?"
"Yeah, you did," he said with a grin, then added as an afterthought, "I thought you said your inspiration was Harry, though."
She had to remind herself he wasn't her Ron and that she had better not kiss him.
At the other end of the room, Harry declared he was starving and whether they thought there was still some food left in the school. Dumbledore flicked his wand, and all of a sudden, on the central table, a feast appeared, the kind of food she had not seen in years, and in quantities that were enough for the whole school.
"I'm starving too," Ron commented, and she agreed - she was also hungry. They joined the rest of the group.
It was the best meal she had in years. Perhaps forever. Not just the food, but the company, too.
Next to her sat Albus Dumbledore, who kept on discussing French cuisine and wondered about revising the school menu. On her other side, the other Ron was deep in conversation with Luna Lovegood, and unless she was much mistaken, he was telling her the story of a trip they had taken to find Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.
In front of her, Harry was sitting next to Sirius. Her Harry, with his greying hair and lines on his face, but now there was laughter in them, too, as they were talking about some adventure from Sirius's past, and Harry - Harry! - was retelling the story of how they had battled the troll on Hallowe'en. The other Harry was sitting near, but talking to Remus. Remus's expression was unreadable, as usual, but Ron had whispered to her, "He's telling him about Teddy," and she understood.
At the other end of the table, Anthony and Neville were talking with Severus Snape, of all people, and Hermione watched in surprise mixed with confusion how the three of them were laughing with each other and with Lily. "It would appear," Dumbledore said with a wink, "that Mr Goldstein is considering a career of Potions Master." Hermione stifled a snort. She could think of better people to ask for advice about teaching than Severus Snape - for example, everyone else in the room - but perhaps this Severus Snape was a different enough man to be considered in this group. And next to them, maintaining a truce that was just as unthinkable, James Potter was sitting, and next to him were Padma and Dean, slightly further away from everyone else, but they were talking. Hermione wasn't sure what they were talking about, but whatever it was, she hoped it would help.
There they were, all of them, the unlikeliest of families, all at the same table. Almost all.
It took her another moment to realise who was missing from the group, and then she turned around.
At the next table and away from everyone else, sat Ron and Ginny Weasley, and they were talking quietly but with huge smiles on their faces. And all of a sudden, Hermione's joy had disappeared.
Hogwarts had not been destroyed, they had taken control of the Ministry, and their world could finally start healing again. But some wounds, she knew, could never be healed. For some things, it was too late.
"Excuse me," she told Dumbledore, and got up from her seat. He followed her with his eyes, but did not say a thing. She went to sit with Ron and Ginny.
"I was just asking him about - well, Harry sort of tried to kiss me earlier," Ginny explained. "Um, not your Harry, but from what Ron says..."
"Yeah," Hermione said. She tried to smile, but she wasn't sure anymore whether she was relieved or happy or sad. "I was a bit surprised you didn't notice how he was looking at you the whole time we were over - at your world, I guess." She thought about it for a moment. "He still cares a lot about you."
"I didn't realise," Ginny said quietly.
"It doesn't matter," Hermione answered. Her gaze met Ron's.
"No," he said. "It doesn't."
Ginny looked at the two of them in confusion.
"But you know, I think you're sort of my sister-in-law?"
"Sort of," Hermione said.
"Except not really," Ron muttered.
"We never got married," she told Ginny, pretending this was what Ron was talking about, even though she knew it wasn't. "We planned to, but - you know."
"Hard to get married when you're running for your life."
"Something like that, yeah."
"I used to think about it," Ron said all of a sudden. "Plan it in my head. How Mum will insist on doing the cooking like she did in Bill and Fleur's wedding, and perhaps we could even do it in the Burrow, or maybe at the Hogwarts grounds."
"Guests will be dancing, and we will book the Weird Sisters," Hermione mused. "And all my family would go 'Who are these freaks?'.
"We will get some Muggle bands, too," Ron said with certainty. "Who's popular now in the Muggle world?"
"How should I know?"
"We'll find out. And book them. And Mum will think it's odd noise and complain we should have got Celestina Warbeck."
"And Fleur will complain how much she hates Celestina Warbeck," Hermione couldn't help the smile.
"And then the guests. Luna and old Xenophilius Lovegood will come all in yellow again, like they did in Bill and Fleur's wedding."
"And we'll have to invite Viktor Krum," Hermione said. Ron laughed in response.
"Fine, but if your ex is coming then so is mine. Lavender will be there. Wearing lilac."
"It clashes horribly with her hair," Hermione said.
"And Harry and Ginny will dance all night long."
"And so will we."
"It will be the best damn wedding in the world," he said.
"It would have been," she whispered.
Ginny looked at the two of them, completely lost.
They rejoined the rest of the group then, but Ron was quiet and subdued, and so was she. They had won, yes, but now, more than ever, they realised it was not the victory they were hoping for.
"Maybe we should do it anyway," Ron whispered in her ear. "Maybe we should go with them. No one's in danger now, this world is safe. And if we go back with them..."
"We could look in the Mirror of Erised all day long and never get tired," she completed the sentence for him, thinking of Harry's words.
"Sort of, yeah."
She thought now of what Ron said. The other Ron. This world needed her. Needed someone like her. Maybe there was still danger. Maybe there was still the risk, and if not from Death Eaters, then from what the Death Eaters had forced them to become. She didn't know.
There was nothing more she wanted to do than go through the Mirror of Erised and have a perfect life. In front of her, Harry and Sirius were deep in conversation, and Luna was discussing Nargles with anyone who was willing to listen - in this case, Albus Dumbledore, and Neville was exchanging jokes with Severus Snape.
But all this, she knew, wouldn't last.
In this dream, Harry - the other Harry - and Ron - the other Ron - got on their feet. "I think it's time we went home," Harry said quietly.
Don't go yet, she wanted to say. But instead, she nodded. "Ginny and - and Hermione, they must be missing you terribly," she said.
"They must be worried half to death," Ron added quietly. Her Ron.
They couldn't use the device within Hogwarts, of course. Too much magic, Dumbledore had said. It interfered with the Muggle technology. They had to go to Hogsmeade.
There were no celebrations in Hogsmeade. Not the fireworks Hermione had imagined before. Neither were there any shooting stars. The people of Hogsmeade woke up in the morning, went to sleep at night, and lived their lives as if nothing was happening around them. They had learned in twelve long years that this was the best strategy for survival, and now, in these questionable and uncertain times, they stuck with their routine. It could not hurt them.
When they passed wizards and witches in the street, their entire group was met mostly with suspicion and worry. There were no cheers for the people who had changed wizarding society forever, no amazement at the impossible dead people who were walking down the streets of Hogsmeade. People seemed more afraid of retribution than happy with the fall of the Ministry. Hermione wasn't sure she blamed them.
They continued to the Three Broomsticks in silence.
Padma was the first to pause, right in front of the pub. She looked at the snow - white, clean, new. She touched it with the tips of her fingers. "Is she alive?" she asked quietly. "In that world of yours?"
Hermione wasn't sure which one she was asking - Harry and Ron, who were about to return to a world where Voldemort had been defeated a dozen years ago, or Dumbledore and his group, about to return to a world that had survived the long war and was still whole.
"Yes," two people said together - Harry and James Potter. They looked at one another for a moment after that. They really did look like father and son.
"Yes," James said now. Harry just nodded.
"That's nice," Padma said quietly.
"We better leave," Harry said. Then looked around. "I'm not quite sure whether I should say goodbye -"
"Oh, just go already," Anthony said, but he was obviously joking. Harry burst out in laughter.
"Yeah," he said, amused. "Sounds like a good idea."
Dumbledore gave him the box, and explain how to activate it.
"Are we sure it's going to bring us home?" Ron looked at the thing with trepidation.
"Quite sure, Mr Weasley. If it does not... well, you're always welcome to complain to me."
Harry smiled. "See you lot later," he said, then activated the box. With a flash of white light, the two of them were gone.
Dumbledore picked up the small box from the snowy ground.
"How long do you think it will take them to forget all about us?" Ron asked quietly next to her.
"I hope they've already forgotten," she answered truthfully.
They looked at one another, and none of them knew quite what to do next.
"And now," Dumbledore said gravely, "there's another decision to be made."
31st December, 2010, 11:55 p.m.
You can stay here and rebuild your world. Or you can come with us to the world that is already built, and leave the work to others. Each and every one of you. We will not judge you, whatever your decision may be.
Like Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley had no celebrations that evening. And a part of it, the Leaky Cauldron stood deserted.
Tom, the original owner of the pub, was dead. The Death Eater, who had received the establishment after Tom was sent to Azkaban, had fled when the fighting started. Or, perhaps, he stood his ground and fought, and was now one of the dead or captured Death Eaters in the Ministry.
Whatever his fate was, it was clear what had happened with the patrons. Overturned chairs, meals that were still on the tables, and broken glass everywhere, the small pub looked like it had suffered a stampede. The Death Eaters' customers had probably not even waited to see the results of the fight.
Ron waved his wand. The dark room was filled with light. "Think we should rearrange this place?" he asked her. She shrugged. Someone would get to it, eventually. Right now, no one even knew who was the legal owner of the pub.
Outside, she could hear Albus Dumbledore's voice, as he waved his wand, but this time, not making war. This time, Albus Dumbledore was helping the rest of them find the wounded, those who were buried under the debris and the destroyed buildings, trying to save whatever life they could.
You can stay here and rebuild your world, he had said. Or you can leave the work to others.
She didn't want to talk about it. Not yet. She didn't have an answer yet. And Dumbledore was willing to wait. He had said so himself.
"Look," Ron called from the other side of the room. She took a few steps towards him. It was a copy of the Daily Prophet. Yesterday's copy. No newspaper had been published today.
"What is it?" she asked. What could possibly be in the newspaper that would be of interest to them?
"Argentina was flattened by Angola in the World Cup preliminaries," he said.
"You think England will need to play again for its spot?" she asked, distracted. How did that work, really?
Ron looked just as confused. "I don't know," he said. "You think the players were Death Eaters?"
"I doubt they were Death Eaters, but I don't know what else they were."
"Yeah, Ministry-approved team, can't be worth too much," he said absently.
She turned her head to the right just as he turned his to the left. Their eyes met by accident, half way through the movement. She paused, and so did he. She could see it, in his eyes. His answer to Dumbledore. And she knew it was the same answer as hers.
She thought they would have to discuss it, to talk about it. That it would take days. Take your time, Dumbledore had said. Think it over. We won't be going anywhere, not before you have decided. Our world can wait a little bit longer.
We will not judge you, whatever your decision will be.
But they had made their decision already, the both of them. Ron could see it, too. He reached with his hand to her, touched her shoulder, then pulled her for a hug.
"It's going to be alright," he promised.
"Yeah," she agreed and sniffled, trying to keep the tears at bay. "Yeah, it's going to be alright."
She didn't want to let go of him. She didn't want to think of tomorrow, of next year, not even of the next five minutes. Just the here and now, and let them worry about everything else later.
"It's going to be alright," he said again.
Finally, she let go of him. He would have held her longer, she knew. He could stay in that moment forever, just as long as she could. But eventually, things would have to move forward. They couldn't stay there forever, no matter how much they wanted to. The world would still move forward in the end, with or without them, and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it.
Now she looked at him, and he wiped her tears away and kissed her gently.
"Come on," he said. "Let's go talk to the others."
"Yeah," she said. "Let's."
They left the Leaky Cauldron, through the brick wall, and into Diagon Alley.
The damage was worse than she had imagined. Apart from the old pub, not a single building was whole. The bookshop had burnt to the ground; there was no trace of Ollivander's. Borgin and Burke's had suffered a similar fate, but she paid no mind to the Death Eater shop. Gringotts, too, had suffered the results of the attack - she could see, even from afar, the small goblins and the taller wizards, who were trying to clean the debris from the bank's entrance.
Even the small house, where they had lived and hidden for years under the protection of the Fidelius charm, had been destroyed in the battle.
At the other side of the road, next to what was left of Madam Malkin's Robes for Every Occasion, she could see the tall figure of Albus Dumbledore, commanding the wizards and trying to clear the stones. Someone was buried under there, she realised. Perhaps Madam Malkin.
What a way to begin the new year.
"Oh my god," she said, and without realising it, her hand covered her mouth.
"What is it?" Ron asked. She could hear the worry in his voice. How silly of her - she had worried him, and all for a ridiculous thing as this.
"I just thought - what time is it?"
"What?"
"What time is it?"
"Er..." he looked at his watch. "Twenty past midnight? Give or take a few minutes, anyway. Is this important?"
"Not really. I just thought... it's the new year. It's 2011."
"Yeah."
They looked at each other, and a grin appeared on Ron's face. "I s'pose it's not really important whether it's midnight or a bit after."
"No," she agreed. "I don't think it does."
"And twenty minutes, that really isn't that much time."
"No," she said, biting down the smile. "Not a lot of time at all."
"Especially not compared to twenty four hours."
"Or a week."
"Or a month."
"Exactly."
"And," Ron continued, "this watch it rubbish. It's probably running too fast. It could be... ten minutes after midnight."
"Ten minutes," she said in a mock serious voice, "that's almost like midnight."
"Yeah, it is. We could fake a countdown."
"Does there have to be a countdown?" she asked. "I don't think there has to be a countdown."
"Isn't it a Muggle tradition?"
She shrugged. "Muggles are much more flexible in their traditions than wizards," she said.
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
He looked again at Dumbledore. "They waited this long for our answer, they could wait a little longer."
"I don't think they even expect an answer now," she said.
"Yeah, what's five minutes more?"
"Five?"
"Well, maybe only three," he amended.
"Two..."
"One..."
"Happy new year," she whispered. Ron leaned down and kissed her.
Around them, Diagon Alley lay in ruins.