A/N: I've had this story (a version of it, at least) in my head since 2007. It took me a while to write it.

Fic title based on Castle by Eminem.

As always, comments are more than welcome :). However, please note I've sadly stopped responding to reviews on here. I do read them, and am so very grateful for them, but this site's interface is so hectic and violently dissuasive in terms of engaging with readers (the only way to thank someone for a review is a DM? Really?) that I've not found it in me to continue, at this stage. A strange, old-school emotional connection to has driven me to continue posting this fic on this site, but do know that I've now transferred most of my work and the rest of my fandom life to AO3. If you would like to read more of my work, I strongly encourage you to head over there (same username: pebblysand) username. If you do not like AO3, I am also on tumblr, pebblysand, where I am most active.

Lastly, myself and another fic-writer friend host a podcast on the art and science of writing fanfiction. It's called "The Fanfic Writer's Craft" and you can find it under that name on Spotify or on tumblr at thefanficwriterscraft.

I hope you enjoy the following fic and journey 3


Castles

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i. out of sand (baby girl)

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May, that year, is a blur. A blur of funerals and tears at The Burrow, of thoughts of Fred and firewhiskey. It lies in a pool of glittering amber at the bottom of carved crystal glasses and burns Harry's throat when it courses down his body, sits on his stomach as it ripples there like a cushion - a nice, comforting buzz in his head. By day, the alcohol loosens tongues and eases smiles, drunken stories and games under the dimming sun. By night, it worsens the nightmares and so he stays awake, watches the ceiling move, the room spinning around him like in the eye of a tornado.

In '98, they don't get the luxury of hindsight. Hermione doesn't get to know that she will get her parents back, some day; Ron doesn't yet understand that the pain of losing Fred will abate but will always remain and simmer under the surface, ready to boil back up at the first whiff of spring. The way that Harry will probably have to explain all of this to his children, one day, that they'll ask him questions about the war that he'll have to answer, ten or fifteen years from now, doesn't occur to him. May, that year, is a blur that starts with the battle and ends with it. The world around them is engulfed into a whirlwind of emotions, a tumultuous mixture of frenzy and grief, sometimes devoid of any sort of boundaries.

On the day that follows the battle, the picture of Harry that the Daily Prophet uses to fill its front page is the same as the one they had for the Undesirable No 1 posters. There isn't time for anything, let alone new headshots. Four words make the headline: The Boy Who Lived. More copies are sold than ever before in the history of the paper (they do a reprint in the afternoon, and one in the evening), and it's as though the entire wizarding community wants a physical piece of this moment in their lives (a physical piece of him). It doesn't matter that most of what's in print that day is pure conjecture, or that Harry has been locked away in Gryffindor Tower for over twelve hours, unavailable for interviews. People are happy. The reckless euphoria is real, even for those who've lost friends or family members in the battle. No one seems to know what to think, both wanting and not wanting to believe that it all happened, that they made it through, that they lived, for better or for worse.

These days, Harry is asked for his input on a cluster of inextricable details. From the schedule of funerals to the closure of Azkaban, to what he wants to see from the remembrance ceremony. Most of the time, he doesn't know what to say. For someone who used to have an opinion on nearly everything, before the war, he finds that he's mostly tired, exhausted, and can't really think. The fresh coat of paint that dries against the walls around him suddenly becomes fascinating in the way that it doesn't require his brain to function. By the end of the month, his voice sounds hoarse, either from over or underuse. He finds it hard to explain, a lifetime of memories whispered dead, hard to make the decisions they expect him to make.

Sometimes, Ron and Hermione answer for him. The frenzy absorbs them both, too. At the very least, he makes sure of that. Makes sure that everyone - bloody everyone – knows that he would never have gotten here if it weren't for them. As far as he's concerned, they deserve the praise more than he does. They had a choice in the matter of risking their lives and still, they chose this. They could have eloped out of the country but they stayed, became the real heroes of the wizarding world.

Sometimes, Ginny answers, too. When she does, she searches for Harry's eyes as she speaks and he anchors his look onto hers, studies the features of her face and gives her a weak smile, her words like encased behind a bubblehead charm. What seems to matter is that whenever he finds himself drifting, it's the sight of her that grounds him.

The Weasley clan and its gravitating satellites keeps protecting itself, even after the war ends. A victory in a battle isn't the flick of a switch and the habits they've honed throughout the years remain in the face of struggles that only change in their shapes. There is: Hermione's hand in Harry's when they put Lupin to the ground. There are: Percy's angry shouts when he ensures the wards are still in place around The Burrow, every morning at the crack of dawn. He shields them not from Voldemort's wrath, anymore, but from crowds and crowds of hungry reporters. 'We need space!' he bellows from behind the gate but Kingsley's silencing charms seem to hold - Harry's honestly not sure anybody on the other side can hear him. 'Unbelievable,' Percy says, almost to himself, walking back into the house, and without meaning to, makes everyone smile.

For now, that is all they have: an ability to smile that remains through thick and thin (even if they're mostly short and discreet utterings at the corners of their mouths rather than large grins, full of teeth). After the euphoria of the first couple of days comes the grief. Laughter - genuine laughter - that spring, is rare. The fact of the matter is that there are never any books written about the aftermath of an armistice because no one wants to hear about it. The epilogue to their children's fairytale filled with dragons and unicorns and magic spells glosses over the half-empty jars left on the worktops by the end of the war. It tells its audience that all's well that ends well. The adult, subtle, ambiguous truth behind this is that reality is a different beast. Reality lies in the fact that most of the time that spring, George sticks to his room. So, do a lot of them. Mrs Weasley channels her pain into household chores, whooshes away anyone who tries to give her a hand. She puts food on the table that they politely push about their plates. Ron, Harry and Hermione keep busy because: what else are you meant to do after the end credits of a film?

Kingsley is the first visitor to the house, just a couple of days after they leave Hogwarts, allowed to move back in after Charlie and Percy do their best to put their living quarters to rights. It's an intrusion into the family's bubble, but not an unwelcome one. Mrs Weasley can't actually believe they have the Minister of Magic around the table. She fusses about and forces Ginny to put on a dress; it gives them all something to do. Tea's served after lunch and: 'I guess I'll leave you to it,' Molly says before departing the room. Harry, Hermione and Ron line up on the couch with Kingsley on the other side of the coffee table. It's a rematch of Scrimgeour's visit - as though the four of them are replicating a scene in a film studio while the whole world around has been blown to pieces.

'I promise we won't be long, Molly,' Kingsley says, kind, giving her a few seconds to leave. He glances back up at the three young wizards in front of him. 'How are you three?' he asks. Before any of them can answer, he adds a caveat. 'And I mean, really -'

Harry feels the Minister's gaze upon him, frankly isn't sure what to say. How am I, really?

'We're fine,' Ron settles, fills the silence that the other two seem to have decided to let stew. He shrugs. 'All good.'

A moment passes. Kingsley looks at the three of them, gaze trailing over their tired faces, one after the other, and laughs. Something exhausted and drained but still, it feels authentic and, Harry muses later, it's one of those rare instances of genuine laughter, that spring. Hermione looks at Kingsley and shakes her head to herself, chuckles. Harry and Ron join in. 'Stupid question,' Kingsley acknowledges with a smile when their laughter dies down, nodding to himself. 'Sorry.'

They talk shop for a bit. Kingsley tells them about his new role, about the ongoing efforts to catch Death Eaters on the loose. 'In some circles, there's still a price on your head, Harry,' he indicates in a tone that Harry knows is meant as a warning, one that he promptly chooses to ignore.

The recurring issue, these days, is that in the afternoons, he's taken up to visiting Devon. He doesn't want to Apparate too far, doesn't want to give the Prophet another excuse to write about him (Potter Apparates Without A Licence), but at this point, he's been to Exeter, Branscombe Beach, the Seaton Wetlands. It's been beautiful and glorious, full of coastlines and forest hikes; he's even hired a bike, once or twice. On certain walks, there's a silence around him that almost feels dreamlike, seeing places he'd only ever heard of in Muggle school, when the Dursleys would go on holidays and leave him behind to rot at Mrs Figg's.

The others in the house don't like it, although to varying degrees. Ron and Hermione know better than to interfere. Ginny shrugs with a frown but a couple of times, she rolls her eyes and comes with him. When Mrs Weasley cautions: 'Oh, Harry, dear, I don't think it's wise,' he reassures: 'I'll take the Cloak.' He's not lying, in the strictest sense of the word, he does take the Cloak, just never wears it. There is something about standing there unrecognised in the middle of Muggle towns, watching Muggles be Muggles while his skin prickles under the sun that feels like it's taken out of somebody else's life. A Voldemort-less life. The spring of 1998 is oddly warm and cheerful in that sense (even the Muggles seem to have felt the Dementors' burden lift), and when Harry buys ice cream cones with the pound notes stuffed in his pockets, they almost taste different, sweeter, like small doses of freedom have been gently infused into them. Since he died in that forest, everything that happens from now on is a bonus, a reprieve won upon fate, and he might as well enjoy it. Sometimes, as much as he loves the others, the attention and care of The Burrow can feel suffocating.

Bill, Kingsley tells them, has lost his job at the bank and now works directly for the Minister's office. This is due to the fact that, amongst other things, he helped Harry and the family cash out of Gringotts and into Muggle banks, the day after the battle. 'You'll thank me later, trust me,' he simply told them, carrying a hefty bunch of papers under his arm, his eyes tired and red. They complied, mostly because it seemed to give him a sense of purpose, prevent his gaze from drifting back towards Fred's body.

Sure enough, Kingsley now has the whiffs of a goblin uprising on his hands.

'You kids really weren't trying to make my life easy, were you?' he jokes. Hermione looks apologetic, Harry honestly could not care less (he never particularly liked the goblins, to tell the truth) and Ron, frankly, seems amused.

'Merlin, with everything, I almost forgot we broke into Gringotts and escaped on a dragon,' he quips. 'Story to tell the kids one day, Hermione.'

She shoots him a glare.

And: yeah, they're still the same, the both of them. Bickering constantly (sometimes, Harry can't help but roll his eyes), but they seem to have reached an adult understanding that they love each other, somehow. It leaves Harry both content and sad, like on top of everything else, he also has to grieve the end of their awkward teenage years. He looks at his best friends and wonders what comes next. Will they buy a house? Have kids? Get married? Move to the country? He wonders if they have a plan for themselves and is faced with the glaring obviousness of the fact that he doesn't. Never quite thought about what would come, in case he did survive. Now, the future is a rather scary blank slate in front of him and time, the mere concept of it, feels almost uncomfortable in his hands.

Without any real sense of strategy, he fills his hours and days with stuff, that spring. Stuff that he wants to do. Simple things like: play Quidditch in the garden or kiss every inch of Ginny's skin. Sometimes, he finds himself erring on the side harmless mischief, the kind of thing that he thinks his teenage self would have done if it hadn't been plagued with the prospect of a war. He imagines doing the things that would truly have driven Aunt Petunia up the wall or made Uncle Vernon throw dishes at his face. With all the time on his hands and close to no consequences attached, Harry figures what he wants to spend his time on, on a day to day basis, and just rolls with it.

For reasons that he can't quite explain, most of the stuff he wants to do, most of the rules he wants to break, are Muggle ones. This helps, because Hermione's really the only person in the house who understands what he's doing and gets to express any sort of true discontent. One afternoon, she glares daggers at him as he walks in, returning from a quaint little Devon village by the coast, and serves himself a cup of tea. Percy, Ginny and Ron are around the table, discussing George. 'Harry, come here,' Hermione says as she rises to her feet, the look on her face both outraged and disbelieving. Ron shrugs when Harry looks at him for help.

The moment he stands next to her, Hermione takes a sniff at his jumper and immediately goes into a rant. Harry braces for it and fakes contrition, hears a jumble of words like: 'I can't believe it,' and 'after everything,' and 'cancer,' and 'it smells disgusting!' She wrestles the pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his jeans and vanishes it before he can voice any objections. Ginny and Percy laugh and Ron interjects: 'What's cancer?'

The next day, it's a bit of a joke, by this point, but he owls Luna and asks her to draw a Hungarian Horntail for him. He doesn't specify the purpose but he feels like she knows anyway (she's both clever and talented, Luna) and she owls him back that same afternoon with a gorgeous black and white animal drawn over a blank sheet of paper that seems to have been stolen from her father's printing press. The texture is light and thin between Harry's fingers. The details of the drawing are intricate and elegant, the spikes on the dragon's back so life-like that Harry almost feels like he can touch them. Knowing that he'd never hear the end of it if the press got wind of a Diagon Alley visit, he decides it's easier to cope with the physical pain than the emotional one (would Hermione claim that there is a pattern, here?) and takes the drawing to a Muggle tattoo parlour in Exeter. He tells the artist that the scars on his chest are the result of the car accident that also killed his parents and swears rather loudly as the needle pierces into the skin at his right side, just above the hem of his trousers. The dragon stretches up to the bottom of his ribcage and Ginny bursts out a laugh when she sees it, whispers something about it being 'very macho indeed,' and asks: 'Don't Muggles ask you to be eighteen for that?'

Harry shrugs, guesses that she is correct but the bloke didn't even think of asking for his ID in the shop. It seems that he must just look older.

When Kingsley visits The Burrow that time in early May, he also offers them jobs. Ron, Hermione and Harry, three spots with the Aurors, training starting in September. It's a political move, sure (wouldn't it look good for the Ministry to have Harry-Potter-and-his-friends join their ranks?), but it doesn't feel like one. It's more of a proposition, a recognition of sorts. In response, Hermione chokes on her tea (Oh Kingsley, I don't know what to say, we haven't even taken our N.E.W.T.s!), Ron swears excitedly under his breath and Harry, as usual these days, says nothing.

'I think I want to finish my education,' Hermione settles. The look on Kingsley's face is impressed but not surprised.

'I wouldn't expect any less of you,' he tells her. She beams, looking expectantly at the other two.

'I don't know, mate, what do you reckon?' Ron quickly follows, throwing a glance at Harry. 'Would be pretty sick, no?' he says but looks sheepish under Hermione's quick glare. She eyes Harry as though hopeful that he will be the voice of reason.

'Harry?'

And for a while, Harry picks at the callouses at the base of his fingers. 'I think –' he starts. 'I think I need to think.'

So: Kingsley leaves empty-handed, that afternoon and over the next few weeks, Hermione begins what the rest of them jokingly refer to as the "Hogwarts Campaign." A couple of days after the Minister's visit, Ron makes his decision and owls in to accept the offer. It's a good job, one that he wants to do, and he needs the money. For a long while, however, Harry remains unsure and Hermione is convinced that it might not be too late to change both of their minds.

'What else would you like to do, though? Play Quidditch?' Ginny asks him, one afternoon. He lies on the grass as her broom intermittently races from one end of the garden to the other (he's tasked with staying put and timing her with his watch). Harry shrugs when she looks at him (as he so often does, these days), thinks that yes, he'd like that, just before it also occurs to him that it would attract even more attention to himself. That, obviously, wouldn't be ideal.

A moment passes during which his gaze catches hers and: 'Is that what you want to do?' he asks. She bursts out a laugh and shakes her head at him. There is a glitter in her eye, one that he hasn't seen in a while (is that amusement? Excitement? Ambition?). Whatever it is, it brings a smile to his face, too.

'You'd think that was pretty obvious, Potter,' she observes, lands and sits down facing him, starts to pull at bits of grass from the ground. 'Did you not notice I've been training about ten hours a day?'

And come to think of it, yes, he did notice that. He's noticed how, since the end of the war, the muscles of her calves have grown more toned than they ever were before, how her hands effortlessly wrap around the Quaffle, how her petite body appears even leaner to him. He closes his eyes, imagines that the moment he got close, she'd fit into his arms effortlessly, like she was made to rest there and his sole purpose on this Earth was to hold her. She's everything he's ever wanted, Ginny, and every time he sees her, he can't think of anything else.

Over the next few weeks, Hermione tries a number of persuasion techniques with Ron and he to convince them to go back to Hogwarts. She uses big words like 'career' and 'education,' and sometimes lures Ron into extensive snogging sessions that he'll be sure to miss once September comes. At one point, she even enlists McGonagall into giving Harry a stern look that makes him stare down at his feet. 'Mr Potter, I shall think you will consider this decision very carefully,' she tells him and Harry's suddenly reminded of the howl that escaped her mouth when she thought he was dead. McGonagall shows none of that, of course, but even tries to dangle the prospect of a Quidditch Captain badge in front of him. 'Who will lead my team if you don't come back?' she asks.

Harry shrugs and recognises the argument to be flawed. 'Ginny?'

To be honest, for all the hard work that she's put in, he thinks she should get it even if he did decide to come back to Hogwarts.

In early May, they also find out about the Commission. It's established a mere few days after the battle – the key, the new and improved Ministry seems to think, is to start when the events of the war are still fresh in people's minds. A number of Order members are discussing it around the dinner table at The Burrow, casual bits of conversation that Harry, Hermione and Ron are prompt to pick up on. 'Not here, Arthur,' Mrs Weasley warns but by the time she does, it's already too late.

'What Commission?' Hermione asks.

The Ministry, the Order explains, has set out to investigate its own collaboration with Voldemort's regime. A bold move on Kingsley's part, Harry must admit, although having seen Dumbledore's memories of Barty Crouch Junior's trial, he can't help but wonder if legal hearings are the best way to go about this. 'It won't be a witch-hunt,' the Minister assures them before Ron can even open his mouth to protest, as if reading Harry's mind. 'I promise you that. But we also need to look into it, don't we? Learn from our mistakes where we can. The Commission has nothing to do with putting people on trial, Ron, it's more about -' Kingsley pauses, seems to choose his words. 'It's like a public inquiry. Trying to understand how we ended up here, and why, so that it doesn't happen again. It'll produce a report and, on the basis of that - and of the Auror investigations - yes, we might criminally charge certain people. We've decided the Commission will be made up of half elected officials from the Wizengamot and half witches and wizards picked at random from the lists we have. The Muggles do that for their trials - we liked the idea. You all probably will have to testify.'

Kingsley's voice is matter-of-fact, like the most obvious thing he could have ever said. Yet, Harry freezes. The glass of water in his hand stays suspended mid-air; he glances at Hermione, then Ron. None of them have really talked about what happened last year to anyone outside of their own little bubble. Mr Weasley asked a few questions, mostly prompted by his wife. 'Where were you?' ('Camping in your tent,' said Ron) and 'What were you doing?'

The answer to that became clear just a few days after the battle, when the Ministry's press release explained everything (without, really, explaining anything). Harry came down to breakfast that day and overheard Ron talking to his parents over coffee and juice. 'I would have preferred to find this out from you three rather than learning about in the papers, Ron,' he heard Mr Weasley say, a tone of slight reproach in his voice.

'It's kind of hard to chat about over tea and biscuits,' Ron pointed out in return. 'And, with Fred -'

There was silence in the room until Harry heard Mrs Weasley's voice crack and although he couldn't see them, he was sure she was hugging Ron. 'Oh, my poor boy, I'm sorry,' she said.

Fred's funeral is something that Harry never wants to remember or think about ever again. In his mind, he refers to them as the "black days." The ones during which they buried Colin, and Fred, and Tonks, and Lupin, and Snape. The ones during which he stood, in black robes, graveyard after graveyard, empty speech after empty speech, and the weather was almost sickeningly sunny, and for the most part, he said nothing. Generally, he thinks he doesn't have that much to say, anyway. It's kind of new and kind of odd, for a boy who, for years, just wanted to be heard.

Overall, Kingsley's the only one who Harry's really talked to. The circumstances were strange, the day after the battle. The new Minister had his wand trained on Harry's back in the dark. 'Drop your wand and show yourself, nice and easy -' he warned.

Harry hadn't heard him come in, almost in a trance, and the space around them was gloomy and empty, Kingsley's steps echoing in the room. Harry looked around him, couldn't really explain how he'd ended up here. He'd woken up from a four-poster bed up in Gryffindor Tower and just walked the corridors of the castle under the Cloak, pushed a door open and ended up in a moonlit room, adjacent to the Great Hall. Kingsley repeated his order, cautiously approaching, and Harry just shrugged, declared: 'My wand's in my pocket but I'm not dropping it. Not here.'

There was a body on the ground, lying in front of them. Harry had sat next to it, within arm's reach, his heart thumping in his chest. He'd used his wand to poke at it, first, almost childlike, then the tip of his finger. The corpse against his skin felt like a corpse, like any other corpse, a normal corpse, cold and dead. Harry had lit a candle, then, wand tickling the wick, watched it slowly consume at his side. The door shut behind Kingsley; he did not lower his weapon. 'Identify yourself,' he instructed, instead.

'It is I, Harry Potter,' Harry started. There was a weary sense of paranoia still lingering in the air. He tried to think of something, anything, a single identifier he'd share with Kingsley that would confirm his identity but his mind went blank, unable to take his stare off the floor. 'I, er,' he paused, nodded at the corpse lying on the floor next to him. 'I killed him.'

Looking back, it was probably the first time he said it. Far from the last. Every time he does, Ron always insists that it's not strictly true. 'You didn't kill him, mate,' he repeats. 'The curse rebounded. He killed himself.'

Harry's not sure if there even is a distinction and if so, why the distinction's important, or who it's important to. It's always felt irrelevant. Like Dumbledore would have done, he guessed. Cast a charm meant to disarm but guessed, deep down, that there was a strong enough chance that the curse would indeed rebound. The possibility, he has to admit, didn't quite bother him as much as it should have. He killed Voldemort to defend himself, but also because he meant to. It feels important, the way it all was always going to end. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord –

Yet, hours later, Harry sat in the dark and lit a candle for Tom Riddle, watched it burn until Kingsley came in and interrupted. Some things, in his brain, they don't always make perfect sense.

Kingsley hesitated, shuffled his feet. When Harry glanced back, the older man's wand wasn't pointing at him anymore. Perhaps the identifier had been found satisfactory or perhaps - more likely - it was the broken, tired tone of his own words that had betrayed him to be the real thing. Voldemort's body lay on the floor within arm's reach and at first, Harry had almost expected him to stir, expected to feel something when he poked it with his fingers, a reminder of the excruciating pain that the man's mere presence used to send up his scar. None of that had happened, though. Voldemort was just dead, and –

'Sorry, we set up wards on the door just in case -' Kingsley felt the need to explain, interrupting Harry's thoughts. He trailed off. Harry reckoned they didn't want to take the risk of Death Eaters coming in, stealing the body.

It was then, a few moments later, after the silence returned and faded away again, that Kingsley asked about the Elder Wand. 'It's a myth. Voldemort believed it so I played into that. It never existed,' Harry said. On the forest, he explained: 'I dodged the curse at the last minute. No one survives a killing curse, Minister, let alone twice.' The Horcruxes, though - 'They're -'

'I'm an Auror, Harry, I know what they are.'

Harry glanced up, assessing the look on Kingsley's face. He sighed. 'Well, then, I can confirm that they've all been destroyed. We spent the last nine months getting rid of them.'

Kingsley raised an eyebrow at him, doubt etched across his face (just like he had done for the other two topics discussed). Harry shrugged, caught his look and admitted.

'For that one, I swear I'm telling the truth.'

Kingsley let out a short laugh but nodded, glanced around at the room. There was a look of understanding on his face and suddenly when Harry glanced back at Voldemort he couldn't bear to be close to him. Got up and blew out the candle; the moon quickly became the only thing to cast a low glow on the ground. His heart skipped a beat. He waited with Kingsley, still almost expecting Riddle to rise in the dark. He didn't. Nothing moved.

'He's dead,' Harry settled, looking up at Kingsley. 'He's dead, and I killed him, and that's that. We all get to move on.'

'Harry,' Kingsley sighed. Before he could say anything else, though, anything about pain and sadness, and the inexplicable feeling of guilt that seemed to plague Harry's days, Harry had already left out the room.

Since this is the story that he told Kingsley, that day, it became the one that was on the Ministry's press release. A comfortable narrative to tell: Voldemort made Horcruxes, which Hermione, Ron and Harry spent almost a year hunting for. The Elder Wand was just a ploy to get Riddle to show his game and, in the forest, Harry dodged the killing curse at the last minute. Ron, a few days after they came back to The Burrow, sat his family down and came clean about the locket and his stay at Shell Cottage. Harry told them how his best mate saved his life. Before anyone else could say anything, Ginny was the first to speak. 'You were being possessed, Ron,' she said. Harry noticed that she looked at her father when she spoke; he wondered if that could have been something that the two of them had talked about. 'It really wasn't your fault.'

Tears flowed, that day, and a deluge of hugs was exchanged. Still, though, after seeing the pain and anguish that the retelling of some of the past nine months inflicted upon the Weasleys, on top of the loss of their own son, Harry decided to keep the rest of the events to himself. When she read the official version in the papers, Hermione took him aside, said: 'You were right to lie about the wand.'

As predicted by Kingsley, three Ministry owls land next to the three of them at breakfast, a couple of days after the Commission is officially announced. The contents of the large envelopes they receive are identical: an invitation to testify the first week of June (Hermione first, then Ron, then Harry) and a thirty-page long document entitled "Immunity Agreement." This sends Hermione into a panic. She locks herself up in the bedroom upstairs, surrounded with quills, parchments and half a dozen books on Magical Law. Ginny, Ron and Harry decide to leave her to it and enlist Charlie into a two-a-side game of Quidditch in the garden. Harry and Charlie race each other to an old Snitch with a broken wing and Harry decides that he might just buy himself a new broom soon, now that he thinks about it.

That evening, when Hermione comes out of her shell, her hair looks even wilder than it usually does. Ron smirks at Harry and rolls his eyes when she drags the both of them out of the house, whispers rapidly so that they are not overheard. A light drizzle falls over them that evening; Harry's glasses get slightly wet. 'They're hearing everyone who might have information about the circumstances surrounding the fall of the Ministry and its consequences. Mr Weasley's got one, too, as well as McGonagall, some of the Aurors, other Ministry officials,' she shrugs. 'They're even interviewing a few Hogwarts students, those who were over seventeen last year.'

'Well, do we have to go?' Ron asks. 'I mean, I get wanting to make the world a better place and all, but what's in it for us? I don't particularly fancy making my life harder than it currently is - do you?'

In the dark, Harry hears Hermione let out a short sigh. Using the light from inside the house behind them, she casts a quick look at a notebook filled with her hasty, handwritten notes before glancing back up at the both of them. 'Yes, we have to go, Ron, it's not exactly a divination class, is it? It's the Ministry. If we don't show we could be held in contempt.' Her tone is frightening and makes "contempt" sound like a big word though in truth, Harry wonders how bad that could be, compared to everything else that happened last year. He's not exactly terrified, to say the least. 'Thing is, though, while we have to show up, we don't have to talk, we could just refuse to answer - they won't force us, Kingsley's banned Veritaserum from official proceedings. Rightfully, so, in my opinion, I mean, it's terribly unreliable and -'

Thankfully, Ron interrupts her before they are subjected to another rant. 'Hermione, the point -?'

In front of them, she sighs and shakes her head. 'The point is: whether we actually talk to them is our choice. They're having people testify under oath, so it'll all have legal value. From what I understand, though, anything we do say about crimes that we might have committed last year could later be held against us when they look at possible charges to be pressed. This is why they're also promising us immunity. If we agree to talk, we can't be prosecuted. If we don't, we're taking our chances, I suppose,' she announces, the two boys next to her throwing quizzical looks at each other. 'I can't guarantee that they won't get evidence from someone else and choose to prosecute us.'

Ron scoffs. Harry looks back at her, frowns, confused. 'Prosecute us for what?'

'Oh, Harry, I don't know,' she suggests sarcastically, faking a shrug. 'Robbing a bank, impersonating Ministry personnel, torturing one of the Carrows in front of a dozen witnesses -'

'Oh, come on, Hermione, they were -'

'I know, Harry, that's not the point,' Hermione hisses, crosses her arms like she does when she tries to make the other two see sense. 'Look, I think they're genuine about it. They just want us to tell them what happened without fear of repercussion and carry out a full investigation. I actually think we should talk to them,' she says. Her voice is cautious, Harry notices, like she knows what his reaction will be, how he will roll his eyes, already taking a step back. Hermione sighs. 'Harry, it's not like the old Ministry, they're trying to do things right, here. Whatever this Commission will find out, it'll be the stuff that'll be in History books for years to come! Don't you want to tell them your version of events? I think we should.'

Harry ponders over it, face humid with rain. He wipes his glasses off with the sleeve of his jumper, thinks back to a time when having the Ministry of Magic ask him to tell his version of events was the only thing he'd ever wanted. Now, it just feels like the truth is something he wants to shield the world from.

'I'm just concerned,' Hermione says, looking straight at him. 'Because you told everyone a half-baked lie about what happened in the forest and I'm not sure that will hold up in court. They've caught some of the Death Eaters, Harry. They saw you dead. They'll say what they saw.'

Ron flinches at her words. Harry stares at his feet for a second before he sets his jaw, catching her gaze in the dark. It occurs to him that out of the three of them, Ron's war is the only one that isn't a secret anymore. Harry's kept silent about the forest, sure, but Hermione also hasn't told anyone about Godric's Hollow, or Malfoy Manor for that matter.

'Well, we can all make our own decisions, I suppose,' she announces, her tone suddenly resolute. 'It says on there that we're only responsible for testifying to what we've seen or done ourselves, not what we've been told,' she adds, like the most obvious, practical thing to do. 'But I thought that now that a bit of time's passed, we might want to talk about what happened, you know, it can be good to -'

'It does depend who you talk to -' Ron interjects, then, and the two of them embark onto a long, somewhat tedious argument about whether or not they ought to share what they know with the Ministry of Magic and the wizarding community at large rather than a handful of chosen few, a conversation in which Harry, oddly, feels quite uninterested. If pushed, he'd probably side with Ron (he can't imagine how telling a bunch of strangers in a courtroom that he was possessed by Voldemort would help him in the slightest) but generally speaking, he finds that he doesn't have much of an opinion on the matter. For the first time in years, it probably is the first thing they don't even need to decide on as a group and that, somehow, feels more bizarre than anything else. 'If they knew he survived another killing curse, it would just feed the frenzy,' he hears Ron say, at some point, which is probably true but more than anything, Harry finds that he wants to keep the fact that he walked to his own death to himself. The fact that he asked his mother to stay with him. The fear at the pit of his stomach, the wand that he kept inside his jacket because he was afraid he'd be tempted to pull it out. The moment when he walked past Ginny and silently wished for her to stop him. The fact that she was the last thing he thought of. The fact that he died, too. People would think that he was heroic, sing his praise even more than they already do, when honestly, he was just scared. A panicked, seventeen-year old kid. He has nightmares about it at night, still.

'The Elder Wand, though,' he quickly notes. 'You've seen it, you know it exists - they'll ask you about it; I don't want you two to have to lie for me -'

'Oh, that?' Hermione asks. She's matter-of-fact on that one, like it doesn't even reach the level of being a real issue. 'Of course, we'll lie about that, Harry, don't be daft,' she shakes her head at him, like he's (again) being the most ridiculous he's ever been. 'It seems that people believed what Kinglsey told the papers and they won't have any means of verifying it, anyway. Plus, we need to keep this quiet - if they knew it existed, they'd all be trying to murder you. Oh- Harry,' Quick, he feels her pushing a fingertip against his chest, accusatory. 'It was so completely stupid and reckless of you to taunt Voldemort with it in front of everyone. Did you not realise-'

He smirks. 'Yeah, between dying and fighting the most evil wizard of all time, that's all I had to think about, Hermione: what would happen afterwards.'

It's a quip and as usual, Ron snorts in response while she rolls her eyes. There are moments, still, when the three of them haven't actually changed all that much.

That night (like most nights, in fairness), Harry dreams of the forest. Sometimes, Ron and Hermione are there. When they are, they usually die. Sometimes, it's Ginny and those occasions, he wakes up with a start and struggles to breathe. That one time, though, he has the recurring nightmare in which he can't bring himself to give up the fight. Harry reaches for his wand in his pocket at the very last moment, and aims to kill. Avada Kedavra, he says and the two jets of green light collide and explode. For a few seconds, Tom Riddle seems dead, lying on forest grounds, but then the snake rises out of nowhere and Harry feels its fangs dig into his skin before he can do anything. Voldemort wins, in his nightmares, and everyone Harry loves dies.

With that, he's got to admit that the rest of the month of May goes by quickly - with visits around Devon and what feels like a thousand funerals to attend - but also somewhat slowly (sometimes excruciatingly so, in fact), in a way that Harry can't really comprehend. Every night, after The Burrow falls silent and everyone has gone to bed, Hermione sneaks into the bedroom that he shares with Ron, her former reverence at Mrs Weasley's household rules casually thrown to the wind. The first time she does it, Harry doesn't even raise his wand at her, just recognises the way she moves behind the door, the way she stands, uncertain, at the threshold. He's lived with her in a tent for months, could draw her form in his sleep.

She shifts uncomfortably. There are dark circles under her eyes and she looks so thin and fragile in the moonlight: skin and bones, and exhaustion. It was only when they got to The Burrow that Harry really noticed the toll, the physical toll that the war had taken upon the three of them, once he compared their current looks to the ones from just a year before, with the pictures taken at Bill and Fleur's wedding. In a frame on top of the Weasleys' mantlepiece, Hermione stands in her dress like frozen in time, laughing, with Ron and Harry at her sides. Now, she catches his gaze and: 'I can't sleep,' she explains, nods at Ron's bed in the dark. Their friend is fast asleep, the sound of his regular, deep breaths filling the room.

Harry has noticed that disparity in the Weasley family already. There are the sleepers, Ron and George, who seem to escape the current situation by sleeping the days and nights away as though the world in their dreams is kinder, softer than reality. Ginny seems to be part of that group, too, but only because she works herself out to a state of complete exhaustion from sunrise to sunset, with dirt on her face, Bludger bruises on her legs and the woody scent of broom polish on her fingers. Then, there's them: Hermione and Harry, who seem to be awake at all hours of the night, roaming the house like zombies or staying up talking until dawn. 'Do you mind?' Hermione asks, that first night when she comes to Ron's side, and Harry shakes his head.

''Course not,' he mutters.

To tell the truth, there is a sense of comfort in the three of them being in the same room again. In the dark, Hermione buries her face in the crook of Ron's neck and Harry notices how his friend almost automatically pulls her closer to him, fingers gently caressing her arm. In the days that follow, it occurs to Harry that Hermione might just need Ron by her side like he, himself, seems to need the both of them to breathe. That is until one night, though, he comes back to their room at 3 a.m. and Hermione hisses at him the moment he walks through the door. 'Harry James Potter,' she whispers angrily, trying not to wake Ron. She's not pointing her wand at him but Harry still feels bound to look down to the floor, shifts uncomfortably in a pair of dirty jeans much too loose for his bony hips. 'I woke up and you weren't there. Don't you ever do that to me again.'

'I was just –' he starts but she cuts him off, her glare dark and pointed under the moonlight.

'I know where you were. Don't insult my intelligence, Harry. Just leave a note or something, will you?'

He almost puffs out a laugh. A note? Sure, if Ron found that by accident, it certainly would fly well. Not wanting to pick a fight at this ungodly hour, though, Harry just nods and fakes another wave of contrition in front of Hermione, slips back into bed to stare at the ceiling. At this point, it's just easier than to argue.

It's funny - how quickly she knew where he was, though. Harry supposes that he's not as good as he thought at keeping a secret, or perhaps the lingering smile on his face. Because, well, that happens, too. Against all odds and without any sense of strategy, in the spring of 1998, The Boy Who Lived falls in love. Completely, wholeheartedly, passionately and, certainly, a bit recklessly. He loses his mind over a girl who used to be nothing but a dot on a map that he held close to his heart for the longest nine months of his life. Sometimes, even now, he can't believe that she is there, within reach of the tip of his fingers, or lying in bed next to him. It almost feels intrusive, in a sense, to lay his eyes on her, like part of him perhaps believes that she isn't real, a figure to be solely worshipped inside his head that will disappear the minute he glances away. Dumbledore's words often come back to him when he catches himself indulging in these thoughts, afraid that he could somehow turn her into a figment of his imagination: even if it were happening inside his head, Ginny Weasley could still be real.

Her name is on his lips every night that month. From the first day, the first time they do it, in the boys' dormitories of Gryffindor Tower, less than twenty-four hours after the battle. Harry's crashed into a random bed on the first years' floor and left Ron and Hermione to cuddle on the couch in the Common Room. The moment he wakes up, though, it's to the mental image of Fred's body lying dead on the floor. He runs to the bathroom, door swinging open under his weight and it's almost ironic how, just a few hours after they win the war, when everyone is out there celebrating, The Boy Who Lived ends up hunched over the toilet, vomiting his guts out. It takes him a moment to emerge and to finally notice her (Ginny – beautiful, fiery, exhausted Ginny), eyes open wide in surprise, cautiously watching him. Her hand hovers at the side of his shoulder without touching it, hesitant, when he begins to puke again.

In his head, their reunion would have been something sweet, like her lips moving against his, the taste of the raspberry-flavoured lipstick she used to wear the year before. Sometimes even, his brain wouldn't be as kind and he'd imagine a row: her shouting at the top of her lungs in a rapid succession of angry jabs about what an arsehole he was, and how her life had been ruined by him. He didn't imagine this (didn't imagine they'd need fixing).

That morning, he wonders whether, if he was Hermione or Luna (if he had been a friend, still), she would have cajoled him, passed him a towel after he was done. Instead, she hands him a toothbrush as he sits on his heels, barely dares to look at her. 'You should shower,' she says, and closes the door on her way out.

His hair is wet when he comes out half an hour later, surprised to find her still standing there by the window. Something in her look makes his heart rush. Harry's wearing a clean pair of tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt, and in the empty Gryffindor dormitories, that morning, Ginny Weasley steps forward and kisses him, open-mouthed and so close that he can actually touch her, know for a fact that this is not a dream, that she is real, that all of it was real, from the Horcruxes to the forest again, to this, right here. She traces the line of his jaw, fingers grazed by the stubble at his cheeks and ruffles through the unruly mess of black hair that Hermione bravely attempted to cut before they left Shell Cottage. Harry's breath catches in his throat when Ginny's lips ghost over his, slow and out of practice. She tastes like an odd mix of cinnamon and salt, and deepens the kiss herself, doesn't step away until she feels his hands on her hips, pulling her closer. 'I -' he starts as a whisper and stops, stops before he can tell her all the words of the world.

'I don't want -' she says, glance finding his. 'Let's just not talk, okay?'

Before he went to bed, Harry saw Ginny accidentally aim her wand at a couple of second years who were poorly attempting a Reparo on a collapsed wooden bench. A reflex. When he threw a glance in her direction, she bore the same look he'd seen in his own reflection, before, like she was scared of the things she was capable of.

Her glance falls in front of him that morning, finds her bare feet against the tiled floor. Harry takes a while before nodding, timid, and it might have been the beginning of their downfall, to tell the truth, the silent pact she makes him make, holding his palm in hers. They have sex for the first time, that day – his first time and it feels like hers, too, but he wouldn't dare ask, not anymore, anyways – there, in the boy's dormitories after the battle that killed, it seems, everybody but them. 'Are you sure?' Harry remembers he asked her, like something he knew but wanted her to voice out loud, an affirmation of sorts of how alive she made him feel.

They'd messed around before, of course (in Hogwarts), and he remembered his own fumbling fingers finding the warmth between her thighs in the Room of Requirement and the way her mouth had wrapped around him in a broom closet. She had admitted her own ignorance, then: 'I'm not sure this is what I'm supposed to be doing, so, tell me if I'm doing it wrong,' she'd said and by the time she'd finished, not only had they discovered that she'd done most things right, actually, but frankly, Harry had also more of less forgotten the sound of his own name.

This was different, though. He felt the sadness in her kisses but also felt like he needed this (needed her) like his heart needed to keep beating. He looked at her; she smiled against his lips, let her hands trail down his bare back, her short nails digging into his skin as he moved into her. She'd shut the door behind them, muttered a Muffliato charm for good measure. 'I've never been more sure of anything in my life, Harry,' she told him, laughed. It sounded like music he hadn't heard since he was a child. Since last year.

So, every night, now, he slips into her bedroom and the both of them explore all the things that they couldn't explore before. There is resolve and method in Ginny's actions, a newfound sense of purpose in their activities; she throws him looks throughout the days like she wants him to herself every minute of every night because every time they do it, they seem to get better at it. Some time at the end of May, she even comes with him inside her for the first time, rather than at the touch of his mouth or fingers and frankly, Harry hasn't been this proud since he won the Quidditch House Cup. 'Last year,' she whispers in the dark one night, naked and sated next to him. His fingers trace loose patterns against the pearly skin of her arm. 'I kept thinking that if I ever saw you again, we needed to do this. I didn't want to think that we could have died without actually doing it.'

To him, the spring of '98 is about sex and funerals.

They don't talk, though. When he looked at her after the battle, Harry thought they would have all the time in the world to talk and maybe they still do but in an odd and unexpected turn of events, it's not what either of them wants to do. They fool around and discover every inch of each other's body but that thing that Ginny says about last year, it's the most personal thing Harry ever hears her say, in that first month after the war. He can't keep his mind from going around in circles about what might or might not have gone on at Hogwarts. There are a few scars on her body that look older, like they don't come from the battle, and sometimes the idea of the Carrows and what they could have done to her makes him physically sick. One time, he tries to bring it up by letting his mouth drop kisses along a nasty line that runs down her stomach and she laughs, brings him back up to face her. 'I'll tell you about mine when you tell me about yours, Potter,' she quips and Harry has the distinct impression that the only reason she says that is that she knows for a fact, deep down, that he won't tell her anything. There is a bruise on his chest over his heart directly where the curse hit; it turned black in a few days after the battle and then just stayed there, sore, painful, persistent. Hermione gives him her bottle of Dittany; it doesn't have any effect. 'Maybe you could cover it up with another tattoo,' Ginny just jokes, one night. It's the only thing she ever says about it.

The battle itself, it sits between them as something they both know and don't need to comment on, like land between two houses, like her brother's death and her mother's howls. 'It's the smell,' she sighs against his chest, once, the locks of her hair cascading down his shoulders. 'Blood. Do you remember? That's why I left the Great Hall to go help people out on the grounds. I couldn't take it anymore.'

To that, Harry nods. He remembers the sound of people's pleas, groans, the stench of death - tries to find the words for how it feels to both be dead and so, fucking alive at the minute, and thankful and guilty - it feels like there is nothing to say because in truth there is too much; she shifts again to face him. Moves up, on her stomach, chin against the line of his sternum. Shakes her head, smiles.

'Let's not be sad. Okay?' Ginny adds, then. 'We're naked and we're in bed, and I don't want to be sad.'

And, so, they're happy instead.

Of course, Hermione is quick to argue that watching them both is like watching a train about to run into a wall at full speed. Harry strategically chooses to ignore her. She doesn't like that he and Ginny are keeping their relationship a secret from the others, claims that whatever happiness Harry's feeling in Ginny's arms is derivative of physical comfort, and thus, just a temporary fix. 'My whole life's been temporary up to this point, Hermione. What's wrong with temporary?' he asks and she rolls her eyes, a cardigan pulled close around her chest. 'We're not like you and Ron,' he insists. 'We do things differently.' We'll fix things differently is what he means, really, but doesn't want to hear her point out how little evidence he has to back this up. Ginny, in his head, is the future that he wants to be in, the same glimmer of hope she used to be when he stared at her name on the map for hours and thought of what their lives could be. He doesn't want the one good thing in his life to be polluted with any of this shit.

Plus, if he told Ginny about his year or pushed her to tell him about hers, he'd run the risk of losing her. By May 1998, it is crystal clear in Harry's mind that the last time he confronted someone he actually cared about, they said 'search me,' took their things and didn't reappear for months - he can't run the risk of losing Ginny like that, not on top of everything else. 'Still,' Hermione frowns at him one morning; the both of them are hastily whispering in the middle of the corridor, queuing to use the bathroom. 'You can't build a healthy relationship like that, Harry.'

Harry thinks it's a bit rich for Hermione to be giving him advice on matters of the heart after the years she and Ron spent at each other's throats, but he knows better than to point that out.

'Ron suspects, you know?' she frowns. 'He told me. I honestly don't think anyone would mind about you two, as long as you actually explained it. Oh, Harry, if you just talked to people sometimes -'

Hermione remains frosty with him all through Teddy and Andromeda's visit, that afternoon - not that it matters. His godson himself is also one of the very few people who give Harry hope, these days. Every time the little one comes to The Burrow, it feels to Harry like a light shone through the night. Although he doesn't really have any point of reference for comparison, Teddy seems to be, by all standards, a very happy baby. He rarely ever cries and when Andromeda puts him in Harry's arms for the first time, he just looks up at his godfather, content, while Harry's heart races in his chest, terrified that he could somehow break this most precious little thing. The discomfort must be readable on his face because everyone kind of laughs (a genuine laugh - they're more and more frequent, these days) and Ron's mum shakes her head at him in amusement. 'You look like Arthur when we first had Bill, Harry,' she says, her eyes kind and smiling.

Andromeda stands alone with Teddy in the back garden a few hours later. The rain has stopped but the grounds are muddy, clouds heavy in the sky. A very thin mist seems to remain in the air; it frizzes her hair. 'I had to take him outside,' she explains and it's the first time, under the orange light of the late spring evenings, that Harry notices the dark circles under her eyes. 'He was fussing.'

Next to them, a bird looms in and lands over the roof of the broom shed. Teddy points at it empathically, trying to draw his nan's attention to it as his hair turns bright red. Harry speaks before he can stop himself or let his own fears of inadequacy resurface. 'I want to be there for him,' he says, just as Andromeda smiles and nods: it's a bird, yeah, Teddy!

At Harry's words, though, she immediately looks up from her grandson. Her dark glance seems to pierce into Harry's soul.

'Anything you need, anything he needs,' he adds, uttered firmly in the near silence. 'I think I'm not great with babies,' he admits, reminded of how awkward he was, holding Teddy, just a few hours before. 'But I want to do for him all the things that Sirius couldn't do for me, you know?'

His godfather's name, it seems, is what makes Andromeda smile, in the end. It softens her gaze like an ointment on a wound and she nods after a while, quiet, asks: 'Would you like to try holding him again?'

And there, without the pressure of the world looking down upon them, Harry gently takes Teddy from her arms and suddenly, everything around them feels right. The little one's head fits against his chest and the world is immediately better for it, safe and protected, cocooned, like a child (this child), that little bundle of life in Harry's arms will be the one thing that will set everything right. Teddy coos softly as Andromeda retreats back to the house and they both stand in the garden under the soft, evening light.

They loved you, Teddy, Harry thinks, rocking him with a hand to the back of his head. So, bloody much.